Joe Biden’s administration on Friday filed a request in federal court in California to remove parts of the Flores court settlement, which for 27 years has provided oversight of how the federal government cares for migrant children in its custody. Instead, it intends to implement a new updated rule next July with “clear standards for the care and treatment of unaccompanied immigrants,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
The government believes that the agreement has outlived its purpose and that new regulations are necessary to ensure the safety of children. But several children’s rights organizations fear that the new rule will eliminate protections, such as the prohibition of keeping minors in detention centers for a long period or the obligation to allow external monitoring of such facilities. Especially in Texas and Florida, two states governed by anti-immigration ultraconservatives, Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis.
Reached in 1997, the regulation arose from a lawsuit filed against the government on behalf of four teenagers – including Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old Salvadoran girl – who had been held for long periods of time in government-selected facilities, in those who did not receive education or adequate medical treatment.
After a decade of litigation, the Flores agreement was reached, which served to establish standards for the detention, treatment and release of minors. Among other measures, it mandates that migrant children be promptly released to family, a child welfare program, or an adult seeking custody if family reunification is not possible. In the vast majority of cases, released children go to live with close relatives while their immigration bureaucracy is processed.
The Biden administration wants to eliminate a part of the agreement, the one that contemplates protections for unaccompanied minors, that it considers outdated. Instead, he will implement a new rule that will create an independent Ombudsman office, establish minimum standards in temporary shelters, and improve screening protocols for releasing children to families and sponsors.
Judge Dolly M. Gee, of the Central California District Court, will have to rule on the petition in the coming weeks. “Twenty-seven years later, there is every reason to believe that its objectives have been achieved,” the government wrote in its motion to the court, justifying the request.
Previous governments have already tried to end all or part of the Flores agreement. In 2014, Barack Obama filed a similar partial request to respond to the increase in children entering the country alone. In 2020, Donald Trump called for ending all protections, something that was accepted by an appeals court, but never went into effect. In this election year, in which the immigration issue is at the center of both candidates’ campaigns, Biden trusts that Judge Gee will agree with him and can update the rule.