Attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia, led by California and Massachusetts, filed suit Monday to block Trump administration efforts to alter a 1997 federal consent decree called the Flores settlement that lays out ground rules for how the federal government detains migrant children. The new rules, announced on Friday, would lift court oversight and allow children to be held indefinitely; under Flores, minors can be detained for no longer than 20 days and in the least restrictive setting.
The 20 attorneys general, all Democrats, argue in their lawsuit that the Trump rules violate the spirit of the Flores settlement, that their states would bear the cost of the trauma and irreparable damage inflicted on the tens of thousands of minors detained for long periods of times, and that the rule undermines state licensing programs for child care facilities. State officials also made the moral case that locking up children is wrong and pointless. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee must sign off on the Trump administration's rules, set to take effect in 60 days.
The Trump administration said that under its rules, the child and family detention facilities will be audited and the audits made public, but the Flores lawyers would no longer have access to the children and the facilities where they are held, sometimes in deplorable conditions. It is thanks to these Flores monitors that we get jolted into remembering that the U.S. is locking up children, Barbara Bradley Hagerty notes at The Atlantic, and learn they "don't have soap. They are freezing. The food is rotten." If Trump's long-sought rules go into effect, she adds, "the long-term detention of migrant children would carry on out of view from advocates, the American public at large, and the entire world."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The plaintiffs' lawyers overseeing the agreement have also said they will also challenge the rules.
-
Has Zohran Mamdani shown the Democrats how to win again?Today’s Big Question New York City mayoral election touted as victory for left-wing populists but moderate centrist wins elsewhere present more complex path for Democratic Party
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
