President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed changing regulations that act as limits on detaining migrant families, The Washington Post reports.
The proposal calls for the administration to withdraw from the Flores Settlement Agreement, a federal consent decree that followed from a class-action lawsuit and set national policy on the detention of immigrant minors.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services made the proposal on Thursday, though it is not scheduled for publication until Friday. It would expand the size of family detention centers, allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep families beyond the current 20-day limit.
"Today, legal loopholes significantly hinder the Department’s ability to appropriately detain and promptly remove family units that have no legal basis to remain in the country," DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement. "This rule addresses one of the primary pull factors for illegal immigration and allows the federal government to enforce immigration laws as passed by Congress."
This move almost certainly will end up involving the court, since the judge overseeing the agreement, U.S. District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee, has repeatedly rejected the Trump administration’s attempts to increase the limit child migrants can be held with their parents.
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