Trump's team wants more oversight of kids in migrant detention

Catch up quick: The Flores Settlement Agreement was made to limit the time children spend in detention, improve the conditions for children in the system and allow lawyers to inspect detention facilities.

• The Trump administration submitted a court motion to end the agreement in May. The next hearing is August 8.
• In 2019, the Trump administration also sought unsuccessfully to terminate the agreement.
• In 2024, the Biden administration won a partial termination by writing a new "Foundational Rule" at HHS that matched the settlement's standards.

The new attempt to terminate the settlement follows restrictions that DHS is trying to impose on members of Congress visiting detention facilities for oversight.

Zoom in: Border czar Tom Homan told The Washington Post last December that the Trump administration would ramp up family detention and would construct more facilities to hold families and their children.

• The government is arguing that Flores should end because a lower court doesn't have the jurisdiction to enforce the nationwide settlement, the government has met the necessary standards and because the settlement improperly gives power to the judiciary instead of the executive branch.
• The White House declined an interview request for Homan.

Between the lines: "We've consistently found violations of the agreement and some of those conditions and violations are really egregious," said Mishan Wroe, co-counsel on the case and directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law.

• "They are being arrested by border patrol or by other federal agencies that are ill equipped to care for individuals once they are in their custody," said Sergio Perez, executive director at the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, one of the legal groups on the Flores case.

In sworn declarations to the court, children and their parents (with their identities redacted) described subpar conditions.

• "We have to fight for water. We don't get enough water," a 16-year-old said in March of the Karnes detention facility in Texas.
• "One time the meat was purple. Another time the meat would stink. I got sick from the meat and had to go to medical," said a 14-year-old at Karnes.
• "Some of the staff treat you like dogs," said a 30-year-old mother with four children at the Dilley Family Detention Center in Texas in May. "They whistle at you when they want you to do things," adding that a guard whistled at her 4-year-old to move to a table in the cafeteria instead of speaking.
• A 23-year-old mother with a five-year-old was detained for five days in an Ohio office building before being transferred to a regular facility: "We could only go pee because it was so uncomfortable to go to the bathroom within the view of all those men."

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement: "For years, the Flores consent decree has been a tool of the left to promote an open borders agenda. It is long overdue for a single district in California to stop managing the Executive Branch's immigration functions. The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our immigration system."

The big picture: The conditions impacting children and families in detention echo problems of single adults in detention.

• At pop-up sites like Florida's Alligator Alcatraz, men held in the Everglades facility don't have access to regular running water, are irritated by mosquitos and held in cage-like cells, according to members of Congress who toured the site.
• Even facilities long used for detention have issues during unannounced internal inspections. A recent inspection of adult facility in Buffalo, N.Y. found ICE didn't respond in a timely fashion to detainee requests and there were delays in medical and dental treatments due to staff vacancies, according to the report.
• This year, 10 people have already died in ICE custody compared to 11 in all of calendar year 2024, according to the agency's public data.