Trump Administration Moves To Allow Indefinite Detention Of Undocumented Migrant Children

The Trump administration moved on Wednesday to indefinitely detain children and their families attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. According to CNN, the government announced plans to replace a decades-old federal law that limits detention to 20 days.

The Flores settlement, as the agreement is known, has reportedly been a thorn in the side of the current administration, and the White House has urged Homeland Security for the past year to replace it in order to reduce the number of migrants attempting to cross the border.

Now, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan revealed a new agreement that would allow the government to hold migrants indefinitely.

“By closing this key loophole in Flores, the new rule will restore integrity to our immigration system and eliminate the major pull factor fueling the crisis,” McAleenan said.

In addition to recent rules intended to make getting a green card more difficult and making it harder to claim asylum, the new policy is intended to stop border crossings, which have been increasing in recent months. Last year, around 100,000 migrants were detained at the border, while 430,000 have been detained so far this year for attempting to cross the southern border illegally.

The proposal would change the way licensing is done, allowing the government to use state licenses or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention standards, both of which allow for longer detention.

McAleenan didn’t say when the administration plans to implement the new policy. However, he headed off criticism about the conditions in which migrants will be held, saying that the facilities where the families will be living are fully-functioning with medical and educational resources available, as well as indoor and outdoor entertainment. They will also offer translation services, legal counsel, and private housing.

“The facilities that we will be using to temporarily house families under this rule are appropriately, fundamentally different than the facilities where migrants are processed following apprehension or encounter at the border,” McAleenan said.

Acting Homeland Security Department Secretary Kevin McAleenan called the measure an important step to address a humanitarian crisis at the southwest border https://t.co/J98RTdPuRT

— POLITICO (@politico) August 21, 2019

Now, the proposal will be examined by a judge and is likely to be challenged in court. Madhuri Grewal, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, criticized the proposal.

“This is yet another cruel attack on children, who the Trump administration has targeted again and again with its anti-immigrant policies,” Grewal said. “The government should not be jailing kids, and certainly shouldn’t be seeking to put more kids in jail for longer.”

McAleenan admitted that the proposal will likely be challenged in court and said the administration had no plans to start implementing the policy right away.