A federal appeals court denied a Trump administration request to hold a lower court’s ruling that ordered it to end its practice of detaining unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in hotels while arrangements are made to expel them from the country.
The three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 4 rejected the request to urgently stay the district court decision, pending appeal, that found children who were brought over or crossed over illegally into the United States during the pandemic are entitled to protections under the 1997 Flores settlement agreement.
The March order called for certain foreigners to be removed from the United States and returned to their country of origin, or another practicable location, as quickly as possible. The order has been extended twice and the second time it was extended indefinitely.
As part of this policy, the DHS has been using hotels to temporarily house accompanied and unaccompanied children for multiple days before they are removed from the country.
Citing an independent monitor, the district court stated that 660 minors between the ages of 10 and 17 were being housed in 25 hotels in three states, where 577 of them were unaccompanied.
She also found that children and families have trouble in accessing a lawyer and that legal services providers have claimed that they face unusual difficulty locating children who are held in hotel detention.
Although Gee acknowledged that the Trump administration may make changes to the immigration system to protect public safety against the pandemic, it is still “no excuse for DHS to skirt the fundamental humanitarian protections that the Flores Agreement guarantees for minors in their custody, especially when there is no persuasive evidence that hoteling is safer than licensed facilities.”
“While the legality of the Closure Order generally is beyond the scope of this Court’s jurisdiction, the Court is obligated to ensure that minors in DHS custody are not left in a legal no-man’s land, where no enforceable standards apply,” Gee wrote.
She ordered the department to cease placing children in hotel detention by Sept. 15, with the exception of one- to two-night stays while in transit or prior to flights. She also ordered DHS to “transfer all minors—both accompanied and unaccompanied—currently held in hotels to licensed facilities.”
The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.