MIAMI _ The U.S. government unveiled a new rule Wednesday that allows the administration to detain children until they can be deported, stripping away current legal protections for youths and possibly leading to indefinite detention.
The rule would end the so-called Flores agreement, a 22-year-old federal court agreement that says officials could only hold children in detention for up to 20 days and must be immediately united with a sponsor, said Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Kevin K. McAleenan at a news conference Wednesday.
"The Flores loophole essentially gives a free pass into the interior of the United States to many aliens who arrive at the border with a minor," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The document is expected to soon be published in the Federal Register, the official journal of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules and public notices.
"The new rule would restore integrity to the immigration system," McAleenan said, noting that the government's hope is that the rule will deter migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The new rule is set to take effect 60 days from Friday, although advocates are expected to put up a fight in court before U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee. Last year Gee denied officials' request to extend family detentions.
"We will be challenging this immediately. Our team is ready working on the appeal," said Lewis Cohen, communications director at the National Center for Youth Law, co-counsel on the Flores case.
The efforts to dismantle the Flores agreement is the Trump administration's latest move to restrict immigration. The new rule would allow families to be detained together, something the current law doesn't allow for approximately 20 days.
"One of the goals of the administration to deter migration is not allowing children to be released into the general population with a sponsor but instead detain them until they can be deported," Cohen said. "In order to do that, the government would have to be able to detain families."
The new rule, McAleenan said, would do just that. Flores has a higher standard of care for minors, so children and their families _ anyone other than a biological parent _ are separated and are held in different facilities.
The facilities where the children end up at are guided by Flores, which says they should be released as expeditiously as possible. However, in practice, the length of stay for children is currently at 45 days, has been as high as 90 days, and some children have been in detention for as long as three years.
The regulation would end that and would allow the government to house the children with their families as they wait for immigration proceedings, something that can take months or years.
"This would lead to the indefinite detention of children with their parents, or without their parents," said Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, who has been critical of child detention. "Imprisoning children, even with their parents, is unacceptable, and is just as traumatic as being detained separately."
