Family Detention Ruling Should Prompt New Policies

U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee ruled late Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s policy of detaining asylum-seeking minors and their mothers in secure facilities for the duration of their asylum petitions violates a 1997 settlement known as the Flores Agreement.

The Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part, has until August 3rd to respond to Judge Gee’s ruling.

The detention centres have been harshly criticised by attorneys, members of Congress and advocates such as the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Menendez also said that detention of immigrants in general must be overhauled to prioritize criminals, not people who have civil immigration violations. Most of these families are fleeing risky, life-threatening conditions in their countries of origin – including domestic abuse.

The ruling also raises questions about what the administration will do with the estimated 1,700 parents and children at three detention facilities, two in Texas and one in Pennsylvania.

Gee had issued a preliminary ruling in May, telegraphing her intentions to find the detention system unacceptable. “There are monitoring systems, such as ankle bracelets”.

The 25-page decision stated that the Obama administration “shall make and record prompt and continuous efforts toward family reunification and the release of the minor”. But some families have been held in the centres for more than a year.

“It is astonishing that Defendants have enacted a policy requiring such expensive infrastructure without more evidence to show that it would be compliant with an Agreement that has been in effect for almost 20 years or effective at achieving what Defendants hoped it would accomplish”, the decision stated.

The 1997 settlement in Flores vs Reno set out standards for treatment of juveniles who were apprehended by the Border Patrol. “A policy that just targets mothers with children is not rational and it’s inhumane”.

“Detention of these families to act as a deterrent was unnecessary”, Menendez said in an interview with Fox News Latino.

Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio Elizondo of Seattle, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration, welcomed Gee’s ruling and urged the administration to comply with it expeditiously. The two facilities are located south of San Antonio, approximately 95 miles apart, in Dilley and Karnes City. Federal officials must justify the callous policy by next Monday, or else release the families.

The government can also decide to appeal the ruling.

“We are disappointed with the court’s decision and are reviewing it in consultation with the Department of Justice“, Marsha Catron, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a prepared statement given to The Times.

DHS had said the detention of immigrant mothers and children was being done to send a message to other Central American families that this would be their fate should they attempt to illegally enter the United States.