Flores Settlement Agreement limits how long children can be detained and requires they be provided with food, water and clean clothes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration<\/a> is trying to end a cornerstone immigration policy that requires the government to provide basic rights and protections to child immigrants in its custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The protections, which are drawn from a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, limit the amount of time children can be detained by immigration officials. It also requires the government to provide children in its custody with adequate food, water and clean clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The administration\u2019s move to terminate the Flores agreement was long anticipated. In a court motion filed Thursday, the justice department argued that the Flores agreement should be \u201ccompletely\u201d terminated, claiming it has incentivized unauthorized border crossings and \u201cprevented the federal government from effectively detaining and removing families\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donald Trump also tried to end these protections during his first term, making very similar arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The move to end protections follows a slew of actions by the Trump administration that target children, including restarting the practice of locking up children along with their parents in family detention<\/a>. Immigration advocacy groups have alleged in a class-action lawsuit<\/a> filed earlier this month that unaccompanied children are languishing in government facilities after the administration unveiled policies making it exceedingly difficult for family members in the US to take custody of them. The president and lawmakers have also sought to cut off unaccompanied children\u2019s access to legal services and make it harder for families in detention to seek legal aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEviscerating the rudimentary protections that these children have is unconscionable,\u201d said Mishan Wroe, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. \u201cAt this very moment, babies and toddlers are being detained in family detention, and children all over the country are being detained and separated from their families unnecessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The effort to suspend the Flores agreement \u201cbears the Trump administration\u2019s hallmark disregard for the rule of law \u2013 and for the wellbeing of toddlers who have done no wrong\u201d, said Faisal al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices. \u201cThis administration would rather enrich private prison contractors with the $45bn earmarked for immigrant detention facilities in the House\u2019s depraved spending bill<\/a> than to uphold basic humanitarian protections for babies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n