California judge releases immigrant families from detention centers

A federal judge ordered the U.S. government on Friday to release detained immigrant children, ruling that the children are being held in violation of of a 1997 class-action settlement.

Meanwhile, representatives for the Justice Department clarified that the judge also can not implement her decision on the centers as there have been considerable improvements in the facilities that are now applying short-term policies.

“As we have repeatedly stated, detention centers are no place for children”, stated Kica Matos, spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.

Gee said that the immigration officials failed continuously to proceed quickly in placing accompanied minors & in some cases are still dragging their feet unnecessarily.

An Aug. 24 statement from DHS said that “while we continue to disagree with the court’s ultimate conclusion”, Gee’s clarifications of Aug. 21 will “permit the government to process families apprehended at the border at family residential facilities consistent with congressionally provided authority”.

The ruling comes a month after DHS asked Gee to reconsider allowing it to continue detaining children and parents who were apprehended at the border.

Between September 2013 and October 2014, some 68,000 family members – mostly mothers with children in tow – were caught at the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In her ruling issued Friday, Gee said of the DOJ’s request to reverse her July ruling, “Defendants submitted a 51-page brief that served primarily as a vehicle for a thinly-veiled motion for reconsideration, rehashing numerous same arguments which the Court previously rejected”.

Gee has told the administration that its detention of immigrant children violates the 1997 Flores legal settlement (pdf), which established legal requirements for housing children who are undocumented immigrants or who are seeking asylum in the U.S. She says the detention centers and temporary holding cells along the border are “deplorable” and don’t “meet even the minimal standard” for “safe and sanitary” conditions. Though many were deported, hundreds were detained in an effort by the Obama administration to deter more migrants from coming to the U.S.

Lofgren added that the solution to the problem is to take the necessary steps into bringing the nation’s “detention policy in line with the Flores settlement agreement”.

Among them, Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in conjunction with the Center for Migration Studies, in May called for the centers to be closed, drawing on the feedback of several bishops who visited the detention centers in Dilley and Karnes County, Texas.