In a public on Friday afternoon decision, District Judge of the United States Dolly Gee based on the case Flores vs Lynch, decided as a rule that children must be released from detention within five working days and preferably their parents including parents with whom were arrested. The court ordered that this new rule is put into effect from October 23, 2015.
“The government must now take immediate and dramatic steps to end family detention” said Victor Mists Pradis, President of AILA Association for its acronym in English. “This decision will strengthen our efforts to end the inhumane practice of children and their mothers deterner” said Melissa Crow, Legal Director of the American Immigration Council. “The court has punished the government for ‘unnecessarily drag their feet’ to release those under detention and for family use the same repetitive arguments in previous meetings, the court has already rejected. Judge Gee also scoffed at government warnings that the rapid release of children and their mothers could stimulate another mass migration of families from Central America, characterizing these warnings ‘speculative and worse fear.’ The Court gives the government a degree of extension of the five-day limit “emergency of an influx of children in the United States,” but the decision emphasizes that it is only an exception, not the rule.
This recent law case Flores is the continuation of the decision of July 24 in which the Court concluded that the government was in violation of the terms of the original agreement Flores, which was intended to ensure proper care of children when they are under the immigration custody. In July, the Court ordered the government to release children who were subject under this agreement, and gave the government the opportunity to respond to the Court with a solution. The government’s response was very short.