SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A federal
judge in California has ordered the government to release immigrant
children from family detention centers "without unnecessary delay," and
with their mothers when possible, according to court papers.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee
Another Dumb Ass
In a filing
late Friday, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee refused the government's
request to reconsider her ruling in late July that children held in
family detention centers after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally
must be released rapidly.
Calling
the government's latest arguments "repackaged and reheated," she found
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in breach of a longstanding
legal agreement stipulating that immigrant children cannot be held in
unlicensed secured facilities, and gave agency officials until October
23 to comply.
Lawyers for
Homeland Security had asked the judge to reconsider her ruling, arguing
that the agency was already doing its best to move families through
detention quickly and that the facilities had been converted into
short-term processing centers.
Attorneys for the government are
reviewing the order, said Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for the Department
of Justice, said Friday night.This is the second time Gee has ruled that detaining children violates parts of a 1997 settlement from an earlier case. The settlement requires minors to be placed with a relative or in appropriate non-secure custody within five days. If there is a large influx of minors, times may be longer, but children still must be released as expeditiously as possible, under the terms of the law.
In her order, Gee
countered that immigration officials "routinely failed to proceed as
expeditiously as possible to place accompanied minors, and in some
instances, may still be unnecessarily dragging their feet now."
Peter
Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and
Constitutional Law, said that the court's order "will protect refugee
children and their mothers from lengthy and entirely senseless
detention."
The government
poured millions of dollars into two large detention centers in Texas
after tens of thousands of immigrant families, mostly mothers with
children from Central America, crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S. last
summer. Many have petitioned for asylum after fleeing gang and domestic
violence back home.
The
centers in Karnes City and Dilley, both south of San Antonio, recently
held more than 1,300 women and children combined. A third, smaller
facility located in Berks County, Pennsylvania, held about 70 people.
All three are overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but
the two centers in Texas are run by private prison operators.
Between
September 2013 and October 2014, some 68,000 family members — mostly
mothers with children in tow — were caught at the border, according to
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Between last October and July of
this year, less than 30,000 have been apprehended, a drop authorities
say is a result of better enforcement in both the U.S. and Mexico.
In
her order Friday, Gee challenged Homeland Security's claim that
drastically limiting or ending its family detention policy could spark
another surge in illegal border crossings, calling this "speculative at
best" and "fear-mongering."
No comments:
Post a Comment