For a long time, there has been a stumbling block in the detention of undocumented aliens. It is called the Flores settlement, which actually forces the separation of children and parents. The DHS has devised a plan to work around it and keep the families intact.
They will now house the family together until they are either deported or released by an immigration judge. The beauty of the plan is that the Democrats don’t dare oppose it. How would it look if Trump kept the families together and the Democrats took him to court, to force the separation of those families?
If enacted, the rules would give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broad authority to set standards for the detention and care of illegal immigrant families in its custody.
The most significant change in the 200-page proposal, which will be published in the Federal Register on Friday, permits the government to keep migrant families in detention until they are deported or win a favorable decision in immigration court.
“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.”
Current detention policy is governed by the Flores consent decree, a 1997 Supreme Court order that requires the government to release unaccompanied alien children (UAC) from detention to relatives or licensed shelters without unnecessary delay. In 2015, federal Judge Dolly Gee ruled that Flores also applied to children apprehended while traveling in family units. As part of the ruling, Gee established a 20-day maximum period that children could remain in immigration detention with their parents.
This could put an end to a lot of illegal families crossing the border because they can no longer use it as a ruse to get asylum, which is why the DHS is implementing this plan.