(CBS) - A federal judge Friday rejected a sweeping Trump administration effort to detain migrant families and children for longer periods of time than currently allowed, saying it violates the very court settlement the government sought to scrap with its plan.
That settlement, known as the Flores Agreement, sets sweeping standards for the treatment of unaccompanied migrant children, from housing to medical care as well as education, nutrition and hygiene. In more recent rulings, Judge Dolly Gee has also effectively prohibited the government from detaining for more than 20 days families apprehended with children.
Attorneys outside the courthouse in Los Angeles hailed Gee's permanent injunction preserving the landmark 1997 settlement. They said the judge appeared unimpressed with the government's efforts in the case.
In her order, Gee wrote the government's efforts failed "to implement and are inconsistent with" the Flores Agreement. In an accompanying filing Gee said the settlement was a contract that the government is unable to void.
"The blessing or the curse — depending on one's vantage point — of a binding contract is its certitude. The Flores Agreement is a binding contract and a consent decree," Gee wrote.
In briefs filed for Judge Gee, the government claimed that immigration has changed in the 22 years since the Flores Agreement was first established, and argued that the agreement itself led to an increase in children and families coming to the U.S.
In response, lawyers opposing the government action wrote that the government was attempting to "light a match" to the Flores Agreement with a "dizzying array" of claims about migrant children and families that federal courts had already rejected.
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