According to a report from UPI, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles told the government they had until October 23 to begin releasing the detainees.
Advertisement
Immigration and Latino activists applauded a federal judge’s ruling ordering the Obama administration to promptly release children who are detained at family detention centers and called on the administration to comply with the order.
Gee gave the government until October 25 to release the children and, in some cases, their mothers without “unnecessary delay”.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the department said that it will “continue to screen family members’ claims as expeditiously as possible”, and that it will review the judge’s ruling and “consider available options with the Department of Justice”, the Los Angeles Times reported.
An August 24 statement from DHS said that “while we continue to disagree with the court’s ultimate conclusion”, Gee’s clarifications of August 21 will “permit the government to process families apprehended at the border at family residential facilities consistent with congressionally provided authority”.
The administration had appealed Gee’s order, repeating many of its original arguments for why it should be allowed to detain families and saying a system is already in place to reduce how long the families are held.
The representing lawyers also noted that applying certain limits to the detention standards “would heighten the risk of another surge in illegal migration…by incentivizing adults to bring children with them on their unsafe journey as a means to avoid detention and gain access to the interior of the United States”.
Gee also reiterated that the Obama administration had violated a 1997 settlement, known as Flores, that set national policy regarding the treatment of children who are detained by immigration authorities. That arrangement is in violation of the settlement that said juveniles under the age of 18 can not be held for more than 72 hours unless they are a significant flight risk or are a safety risk to themselves or others.
“The writing is on the wall – family detention is unacceptable, un-American, and will end”. Immigrants seeking asylum from harsh conditions in Central America have the right to a proper hearing, and detaining them in prison-like conditions will not fly for this U.S. judge.
Plenty of unaccompanied minors and families arrived on the border in 2014 hoping for a safe haven in the U.S. In the same year, Border Patrol picked up 68,541 unaccompanied minors and 68,445 families, NBC News wrote.
Advertisement
The focus on immigrant detention policies comes at a time where there has been much talk in the media as Republican presidential hopefuls discuss their often controversial immigration ideas.
