The Biden administration wants to partially end a 27-year-old agreement that allows courts to oversee how the federal government cares for migrant children in its custody.
The request to a U.S. district judge filed Friday comes weeks after the Department of Health and Human Services issued its own rules on safeguards effective July 1, with Secretary Xavier Becerra saying, “It will set clear standards for the care and treatment of immigrants who are currently living abroad.” ) The kids. ”
In a complaint filed in California federal court, the government argued that court oversight has outlived its purpose and that new regulations are a better solution to ensuring child safety.
“After 27 years, there is good reason to believe that the goals[of the Flores Island Settlement Agreement]have been achieved. The court should suspend the FSA with respect to HHS,” the government wrote in its filing.
Child advocates say what is known as the Flores Agreement guarantees a safe environment for children, especially as border detentions increase, including nearly 300,000 unaccompanied minors in the past two years. He claims that it helps.
Here's the Flores Agreement and why it's important.
The first lawsuit was filed on behalf of four teenagers, including 15-year-old Jenny Lisette Flores from El Salvador. The lawsuit details how Flores and the other plaintiffs were detained by the government for long periods of time, often in facilities with unrelated adults, without education or proper medical treatment.
The agreement established standards for the detention, treatment, and release of minors. The law requires that immigrant children be released without necessary delay to family members, child welfare programs, or adults seeking custody if family reunification is not possible. The majority of children released in such cases are placed with next of kin while their immigration cases are pending.
If release is not possible due to safety concerns, the agreement states that minors must be held in the least restrictive environment that is appropriate.
The agreement also sets standards for how licensed shelters must provide food, water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature control, and ventilation.
All of this was originally the responsibility of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. After the reorganization sparked by the attacks of September 11, 2001, the care of immigrant children was divided between the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is part of the Health and Human Services Administration.
Generally, when children are encountered crossing the border, they become the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security. Unaccompanied children will be turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours and will become the responsibility of the department. They often live in facilities designed specifically for children until they are released to relatives or guardians, a process that can take days, months, or even years. .
Under the Flores Agreement, lawyers representing migrant children can visit these facilities and document the situation. Over the years, they have repeatedly reported problems.
“My only guess as to why they want to do this now is because Attorney Flores is a thorn in their side,” said Lecia, deputy director of litigation at Children's Rights, which represents child migrants. Mr. Welch said. “We can go into (their) facilities whenever we want, talk to the young people there, and file enforcement complaints if they are not compliant. You can, but they don't like it.”
The government says the new rules, which will take effect in July, will “implement and even exceed” the standards set under the Flores agreement. Among other things, it creates an independent ombudsman's office, establishes minimum standards for temporary overflow shelters, and formalizes the release of children to families or sponsors and advances in testing protocols for legal services.
The 1997 settlement was not intended to last indefinitely, but until government regulations were enacted that met Flores standards.
Advocates for child migrants are expected to oppose the government's move, further straining President Joe Biden's relationship with immigration advocates in an election year when the topic is expected to be at the center of voting.
Jennifer Podkle, vice president of policy and advocacy for Kids in Need of Defense, said the organization is aware of government efforts to enact rules similar to those on Flores, but that He said he was concerned that there would be no third-party oversight of the detention center.
“My hope is that there will always be transparency when children are in government custody so that children who have already suffered so much trauma and so much harm are not subjected to further harm. of the U.S. government,” Podkul said.
Advocates' main concern is how facilities housing unaccompanied migrant children in Texas and Florida will be monitored in the absence of Flores. . Both states have suspended licensing of facilities in their states, but the new rules say the Department of Health and Human Services can continue to use facilities in both states.
In Friday's motion, the government said Texas and Florida have so many facilities for unaccompanied children that if the government stopped sending children to those two states, it would be “already limited.” This would result in a “catastrophic loss of bed space”.
The government says facilities in these states will still need to meet certain standards and will be subject to further monitoring and accreditation.
But for child advocates, these guarantees are not enough. Diane de Grammont is an attorney with the National Youth Law Center and Flores' attorney. She said the rules put forward by the government were certainly a big improvement. But the group said it had serious concerns that lifting the Flores agreement now would create a “wide gap” in oversight of facilities in Florida and Texas. And the agency's lawyers will no longer be able to visit the scene, talk to children and monitor the situation on the ground.
An appeals court previously granted the Trump administration's request to eliminate Flores' requirements for Health and Human Services in 2020, but the changes never went into effect. At the same time, attempts to lift Department of Homeland Security oversight were rejected.
___
Santana reported from Washington.
