“This administration has done nothing to earn the public trust and ensure that detained immigrant children will be treated fairly or humanely if these terms are overturned,” Brown said in a statement. “Oversight is crucial to ensure their well-being.”
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown recently announced that his office has joined a coalition of 20 other state prosecutors in filing an amicus brief opposing the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind a policy governing the inappropriate detention of immigrant children.
In a press release, Brown’s office said that the Trump administration filed motions to terminate provisions of a decades-old settlement. The settlement, part of the Flores case, requires, among other things, that children only be held in licensed facilities subject to the oversight of the state in which they reside.
“This administration has done nothing to earn the public trust and ensure that detained immigrant children will be treated fairly or humanely if these terms are overturned,” Brown said in a statement. “Oversight is crucial to ensure their well-being.”
Brown said that Flores provides significant and expansive protections for detained children—the rescission of which could have dangerous, if foreseeable, consequences.
“Since 1997, the Flores settlement agreement has promoted the safety and wellbeing of children in immigration custody through the enforcement of state child welfare laws. The agreement requires that children be held in state-licensed facilities under oversight, released without unnecessary delay to parents, guardians, or licensed programs, and placed in the least restrictive setting appropriate to their age and needs,” Brown’s office said. “It also sets standards for education, recreation, and overall care, establishes conditions of confinement, and provides monitoring to protect children while in custody.”
Brown noted that his predecessor, former Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, had filed a series of similar claims against the first Trump administration. In 2019, for instance, Ferguson compared the president’s attempts to eliminate Flores with some of the “most shameful” moments in American history.
“This Administration’s cruel immigration policies are reminiscent of shameful chapters in American history—the internment of Japanese Americans, and the forced separation of Native American families,” Ferguson said at the time.
The current lawsuit argues that the administration’s latest attempt to dismantle Flores interferes with states’ “traditional and sovereign role to help ensure the health, safety, and welfare of children by undermining state licensing requirements for facilities where children are held.”
“The termination would result in the vast expansion of family detention centers, which are not state licensed facilities and have historically caused increased trauma in children, and prolong the time children spend in immigration detention,” Brown’s office said. “This can cause significant long-term harm to their physical, mental, and emotional health, disrupt their development and educational needs, and increase burdens to the states that provide services to support them.”
Sources
AG Brown opposes federal efforts to prolong detention of immigrant children
AG Ferguson challenges Trump’s attempt to remove protections for immigrant children
Washington AG files lawsuit to stop extended detention of immigrant children
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