A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of children held with their parents in U.S. immigration jails and denounced the Trump administration’s prolonged …
A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of children held with their parents in U. S. immigration jails and denounced the Trump administration’s prolonged detention of families during the coronavirus pandemic.
U. S. District Judge Dolly Gee’s order applies to children held for more than 20 days at three family detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania operated by U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some have been detained since last year.
Citing the recent spread of the virus in two of the three facilities, Gee set a deadline of July 17 for children to either be released with their parents or sent to family sponsors.
The family detention centers “are ‘on fire’ and there is no more time for half measures, » she wrote.
Gee’s order said ICE was detaining 124 children in its centers, which are separate from U. S. Department of Health and Human Services facilities for unaccompanied children that were holding around 1,000 children in early June. The numbers in both systems have fallen significantly since earlier in the Trump administration because the U.
