President Donald Trump’s administration wants to be freed from a decades-old court agreement dealing with undocumented immigrant children in federal custody, and officials say the government’s new proposal will guarantee kids get dignity and respect.
The deal is known as the Flores settlement, and a federal judge oversees it. In July, the judge said she’d choose a monitor to look at allegations of abuse and neglect of kids held in a part of South Texas. This week, the judge revealed who she wants to serve in that role.
It seems unlikely that ending the Flores deal would free the government from the monitor’s gaze, said Sarah Pierce, policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think-tank in Washington, D.C.
“It doesn’t make much logical sense to me that the termination of the Flores settlement would suddenly stop any monitoring actions mid-action,” Pierce said.
It will take months — at the very least — before the Trump administration’s proposal can replace the Flores settlement.
By that time, the monitor should already be working, Pierce said.
