Rejecting Obama administration’s appeal, federal judge orders release of children from family detention centers by October
*Homeland Security keeps asking for ways around a 1997 settlement that required that children be released from immigration detention as quickly as possible. This is the second time that Judge Gee has ruled on this. VL
By Seth Robbins, Associated Press
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A federal judge in California has ordered the government to release immigrant children from family detention centers “without unnecessary delay,” and with their mothers when possible, according to court papers.
[pullquote]This is the second time Gee has ruled that detaining children violates parts of a 1997 settlement from an earlier case.[/pullquote]In a filing late Friday, California U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee refused the government’s request to reconsider her ruling in late July that children held in family detention centers after crossing the US-Mexico border illegally must be released rapidly.
Calling the government’s latest arguments “repackaged and reheated,” she found the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in breach of a longstanding legal agreement stipulating that immigrant children cannot be held in unlicensed secured facilities, and gave agency officials until October 23 to comply.
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[Photo by U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Flickr]
