Feds rush to comply with judge’s family detention ruling

Federal officials say they’re working to comply with a looming court deadline to stop extended detention of migrant children and their parents.

But immigration lawyers who represent the mothers say the government is unprepared and that, in their dash to meet a Friday deadline, federal officials are denying the women due process and violating other parts of the judge’s order, which allows families to be held up to 20 days.

“There is no way they’re going to be in compliance on Friday,” Brian Hoffman, an Ohio immigration attorney who is leading the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project, said of federal officials. “Given the number of people we believe are here more than 20 days, I don’t think it’s possible to do a mass release by Friday unless a giant charter bus leaves on Thursday night.”

At least two dozen mothers and children, including one family held almost a year, are being transferred from two Texas family detention centers to a Pennsylvania facility, their lawyers said. The Pennsylvania facility has a state license and is technically “unsecured,” which means that the detainees could leave if they want to. However, anyone leaving the grounds would be considered a fugitive and subject to arrest by immigration officials.

One of those women, Mayra Vasquez, 27, thought she and her 9-year-old daughter would be released by now. Other mothers at the Karnes City, Texas, family detention center told her most get out after 18 days.

Having fled gang violence in Guatemala, Vasquez figured she’d be OK at the center for less than three weeks. But it’s been more than a month and she is being moved to Pennsylvania.

“I’m worried,” she said in a phone interview from inside the Karnes facility. “I don’t know where they’re sending us.”

The U.S. government has until Friday to comply with California U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee’s order, after she found that the Obama administration practice violated an 18-year-old agreement on child migrants.

But while some thought the order was the beginning of the end to family detention, the U.S. government has instead detained more mothers and children, albeit for shorter periods.

The administration currently holds about 2,075 parents and children at three family detention centers, in Karnes City and Dilley, Texas, and in Berks County, Pa.

That’s up from around 1,700 in July, when Gee first ruled against the administration.

The Obama administration expanded its use of family detention following last year’s surge of nearly 70,000 parents and children who had fled Central America.

Federal officials have argued that they need greater flexibility to respond to future emergency migrant surges. This summer, for example, an unexpected increase in the number of unaccompanied children and migrant families in August has raised concerns about the potential of another migrant crisis. The latest surge is significant because migration numbers historically drop at the end of the summer, as temperatures rise and desert travel becomes more dangerous.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which is appealing Judge Gee’s ruling, did not answer specific questions about how it will comply. It referred to a statement by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson last month that said the federal agency is taking steps to comply with the judge’s order.

Johnson said the department is turning the government’s three family residential centers into short-term “processing centers,” where individuals can be interviewed instead of detained for prolonged periods.

But immigration lawyers in Pennsylvania said their worst fears may be coming true – that the Berks County Residential Center, because it has a state license, will become the de facto center for longer-term detention.

State officials, at least, say the Berks County Residential Center is unsecured, which means children and their mothers are not physically blocked from leaving.

As far as the state is concerned, the detainees could technically leave if they choose to. But their lawyers are quick to point out they’d be federal fugitives if they did.

“Are they now saying, ‘Does this now start the 20 days again?’” said Carol Anne Donohoe, a Pennsylvania lawyer who represents several women and children at the Berks County detention center. “It’s a total violation of the ruling.”

One of the detained women, a 19-year-old from Guatemala and her 4-year-old son, will be brought to Berks after spending nearly a year at the two Texas facilities, according to her lawyer. Immigration attorney Jacquelyn Kline of Pennsylvania said the teenager’s case is like so many other women who have already been released with an order to appear in court. Many have been given electronic ankle monitors.

“There is no reason why she and her son should still be there,” Kline said.

The ankle bracelets are another point of contention, with many immigration lawyers saying they were locked out of discussions with federal officials when their clients were asked to sign legal papers accepting the ankle monitors when a judge may not have required it.

The Obama administration already has been forced to curb the program and release hundreds of migrant mothers and children as the program came under intense congressional and media scrutiny. But lawyers like Hoffman believe the government is “doubling down” on family detention to fill the facilities they’ve already built and deter future migration.

“If you wanted to deter other people from coming, locking people up and giving them inadequate medical care is a good way of doing it,” Hoffman said.

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Feds rush to comply with judge’s family detention ruling."