Immigrant Children Class Action Supported by 19 Cities, Counties

Nineteen cities and counties have added their support to a class action lawsuit aiming to block government proposed rule changes regarding immigrant children.

The immigrant children class action argues that changes to detention rules would “directly undermine” current protection provided to immigrant minors.

The rule in question is a 1997 decree called the Flores settlement agreement. The Flores settlement agreement limits the amount of time immigrant children can be detained by the government.

However, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement reportedly wants to alter requirements for immigrant children detention which would allow the government to hold these minors indefinitely and would restrict their right to legal representation.

“ORR would enjoy broad powers to declare children dangerous and dispatch them to juvenile halls and psychiatric facilities by ipse dixit, stripping class members of the limited rights to transparency and fair process the settlement confers,” their filing said. “Defendants guilefully replace children’s enforceable settlement rights with anemic declarations of what ORR and [the U.S. Department of Homeland Security] purport to do, but, as this court has now found several times, often do not.”

Numerous parties have lent their support to this immigrant children class action in a proposed amicus brief filed on Nov. 7.

Parties which have signed on to the amicus brief include the California cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose; the Massachusetts cities of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville; the Texas cities of Houston and Austin; Chicago; New York; Seattle; Philadelphia; Columbus, Ohio; Providence, Rhode Island; New Haven, Connecticut; and the California counties of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Santa Clara.

The cities and counties in the amicus brief argue that they have a “significant interest” in the proposed rule changes because it would result in “longer detentions and lower standards of care for immigrant children,” which impedes on the parties’ ability to care for their immigrant residents.

The parties take issue with multiple rule changes proposed by the U.S. government, specifically the changes to legal proceedings.

The proposed rule changes would reportedly alter current agreements which affords unaccompanied minors a bond redetermination hearing unless refused.

New rules would change this so that the unaccompanied minors would only receive a hearing if specifically requested. Additionally, the hearing would be held before an HHS-appointed hearing officer rather than an immigration judge.

The cities and counties argue that “by placing the onus on [the minors] — who lack familiarity with their rights and the immigration process in general — to request a redetermination hearing, the rules will inevitably lead to fewer children receiving such hearings and, therefore, to prolonged detention.”

“The rules impermissibly conflict with the express terms and the underlying purpose of the FSA — to protect the health and wellbeing of immigrant children.”

The Class is represented by Carlos Holguin and Peter A. Schey of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law; Leecia Welch, Neha Desai, Poonam Juneja and Crystal Adams of the National Center for Youth Law; and Holly Cooper and Carter White of the University of California, Davis School of Law.

The Immigrant Children Class Action Lawsuit is Flores, et al. v. Sessions, et al., Case No. 2:85-­cv­-04544, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.