Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) applauds the July 24 federal court order requiring imminent closure of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) family detention centers, which the Obama administration hastily opened over the past 12 months as mothers and children fled persecution and violence in Central America.
In unequivocal language, the court found that the expanded centers were a material breach of the Flores settlement, a nearly two-decades-old agreement which dictates standards for the custody and treatment of immigrant children apprehended by immigration officials. The new California district court ruling clarifies that all children must receive the same high standard of treatment regardless if they travel alone or with parents.
“The administration’s policy of locking up mothers and children to deter others from making the journey was unjust from the start,” said Mary Meg McCarthy, NIJC’s executive director. “It was a callous and inhumane way to treat these families, and represented a fundamental misunderstanding of why they came to the United States. Nearly all have passed initial screenings for asylum based on the violence they fled in their home countries.”
The court’s order lambasted the administration’s decision to hold children in secure facilities with no bond or prohibitively high bonds to intentionally obstruct their release. Further, the court criticized the deplorable conditions in DHS holding facilities run by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the border, finding that they were inappropriate, unsafe, and unsanitary. This finding is consistent with the allegations made by NIJC and four other organizations in a mass civil rights complaint to DHS in summer 2014 enumerating abuse and mistreatment of 116 unaccompanied children held in CBP’s custody.
NIJC congratulates the Flores legal team, and urges the administration to implement the court’s order immediately. Rather than double down on a costly policy that has been plagued with problems, including suicide attempts, inadequate medical and mental health care, prolonged periods of detention, and extremely limited access to counsel, DHS must use the least restrictive alternatives to detention (ATDs) to mitigate concerns about flight risk. Using ATDs will enable these mothers and children to reside with family members in the United States and retain legal counsel to help them tell their stories and seek protection in immigration court.