LOS ANGELES _ A federal judge in Los Angeles dealt a blow to Trump administration attorneys who sought to indefinitely detain immigrant children caught crossing the border illegally together with their parents, in lieu of separating them.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee issued an order Monday lambasting the Justice Department for its request to modify a 1997 legal settlement that set rules for how the government can deal with immigrant children in its custody. The Justice Department had previously argued that the so-called Flores settlement made it impossible for officials to comply with an order by a federal judge in San Diego that the administration reunite children with their parents.
Last month, administration attorneys requested a hearing before Gee contending that despite the requirement under Flores that minors be released "without unnecessary delay," the agreement in fact allowed authorities to hold the children in indefinite detention together with their parents.
Gee called the government's request a "cynical attempt ... to shift responsibility to the Judiciary for over 20 years of Congressional inaction and ill-considered Executive action that have led to the current stalemate."
She wrote that the administration was looking to work around a long-established legal agreement rather than shift the policies that had led to the current crisis.
"Absolutely nothing prevents the (government) from reconsidering their current blanket policy of family detention and reinstating prosecutorial discretion," she wrote.
The judge said of utmost importance was protecting the "blameless" children who are in government custody.
"They are subject to the decisions made by adults over whom they have no control," the judge wrote.
