A ruling handed down by a California federal judge Monday further complicates the Trump administration's efforts to prosecute anyone who crosses the border illegally and once again the issue concerns the detention of children. The judge affirmed the so-called Flores agreement that limits the time children can be held in immigration detention to 20 days. The U.S. Justice Department had petitioned the court to suspend the agreement so that illegal border crossers with children could be kept in detention with their kids until they were prosecuted. Here with more about the ruling is San Diego immigration attorney William Velasquez and Loja welcome to the program. Thank you for having me Maria. I've read that this ruling upholding Flores almost puts an end to the Trump zero tolerance policy. Can you explain why that's being said it's being said because if indeed the children were to be reunited with their parents the government cannot prosecute them because of their and criminal custody pending charges for illegal entry then their kids will be separated from them. And I think that that's the major conflict that we had Marines that we have on the one hand trumps executive order indicating that the government will no longer separate children. But in the same breath Jeff Sessions is saying we will continue with this zero tolerance policy that we have just abandoned that touch and release that we have in years past never will prosecute even people that haven't illegally or the ones. If the parent is detained then the kid is going to be sent elsewhere. Now allowing children to be detained for just 20 days actually that led to the program that some have called catch and release which you just referred to. The president has railed against that policy. But what you're saying. Does it look like that that's going to happen again now. Well I think that that would be the only humane solution to the problem. If if we are to comply with this order we will no longer separate kids from their parents. How can we give them their parents in ICE custody detained by immigration pending the immigration hearing. I mean most of them are applying for political asylum. So there's one group of parents that we have another group of parents who are detained by the criminal system because the U.S. attorney's office is going to prosecute them for illegal entry. So we cannot have both task is a very complete conflict with one another. So we may have to go back to the touch and release and I know that the government is not happy with that practice because they say people that are released they never come back to court they get deported in absentia. But it doesn't matter. They will just not come back to the court. And in fact there are thousands of people who have not attended the court hearings but to keep detaining Terrence we will continue to support the parents and be in violation of the judge's order. Something has to give. Now with San Diego courts now implementing Operation Streamline those mass prosecutions of suspected border crossers. Do you think the criminal prosecutions could be speeded up to under 20 days so that this could actually happen. Parents detained with their kids for 15 days. They go to court. The criminal prosecution is done and they're are deported within 20 days. Well in fact but will they actually contemplate they want to rein convict and sentence groups of people maybe up to 100 as of yesterday. I mean just when he became effective yesterday the Operation Streamline so even to be accomplished that within a day after the conviction the person will be turned over to ICE custody then to them go ahead and pursue their asylum claims. So even if the criminal case is over another detained by ICE and I assume relief them they could be detained for more than 20 days which gives them the kids will be separated from their parents. So it is a complete complete mess. I want to ask you about the huge story about kids already separated from their parents. That's playing out on a San Diego courtroom this week. Apparently today is the day that some 50 very young children separated from their parents by immigration authorities are being reunited. Do you know if that is actually taking place. You know I don't know for a fact. I mean the information was given to us and of course we've heard it over the news that at least 50 plus kids will be reunited with their parents. The government is having some logistical problems in identifying who some parents are and what kids belong to them. DNA testing they need to vet the parents to make sure that the kid is going to be with a safe responsible adult. Some of those are not company children came with other relatives and not necessarily the parents. And so I think that this is why the courts are going to be I don't want to use the word lenient but they want to be understanding if the government says your honor we have done everything we can't within our power. We are searching for the parents we're doing the background for the parents. We're very the parents. I do all of these efforts to be able to comply with the order. But here are the problems that we have. And I think that you know some of those you know some of those reasons are legitimate in terms of where the case where other parents at the same time some of those films I believe there are nine or 10 of those parents have already been deported. The government has been unable to locate those parents in the countries to which they were deported to. So they could be reunited with their kids. So we don't know yet what's going to happen with those parents who have already left the country and left their kids behind you know after all is said and done about the zero tolerance policy. Haven't the recent court interventions mitigated the impact of the policy and in many instances Aren't we back to where we were before we are with the main distinction that now the number of people requesting asylum is in the thousands. So I think it's the sheer number of people that apply. They're basically just detonated a court system because they don't have the resources to process things you know faster than what we have now. They hire more prosecutors they hire more immigration judges. But even with all of those new hires the demand for you representation for court proceedings for expediting all of those processes is still going pretty slow. And so when we look at the result of ending the touchin release what we have today this is intolerable. It is inhumane. I mean everybody is clear the government has said we're not going to separate parents from the kids. The only way that that can happen. Do not separate those kids from the parents is to go back to the touch and really charge the parents plays into removal proceedings along with their kids but release them. I've been speaking with San Diego immigration attorney Lily Velasquez. Lilya thank you. Thank you. Maria.
When President Trump signed the executive order last month that ended the separation of migrant families, he effectively swapped one controversial practice for another — in this case, the indefinite detention of whole families. And the questions weren't long in coming from some observers, who pointed out that the order appeared to violate a 1997 legal settlement that has been interpreted as barring such indefinite detentions.
At the signing last month, Trump acknowledged the likely legal battles on the horizon: "There may be some litigation," he conceded, instructing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to request modifications to that settlement.
Now, events in court are bearing out those predictions of legal trouble.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee rejected the request for "limited relief" from the settlement, often known as the Flores agreement, that served as the basis for a 2015 court order preventing the federal detention of migrant children for more than 20 days.
The provision played a key role in the decision to separate families in the first place, according to administration officials. That's because the move to a "zero tolerance" immigration policy — which detained and prosecuted migrants for illegal border crossings rather than releasing them before their proceedings — would keep parents in detention longer than their children legally could be.
Now that those separations have been ordered to end, federal attorneys had sought an exemption allowing authorities to exceed the 20-day limit. They said that to comply with a separate court order, which mandated the reunification of families already separated under Trump's policy, authorities would need more time to match kids with their parents.
But Gee made clear that she was not impressed.
In blunt terms, Gee variously described the Justice Department's argument as "dubious and unconvincing," "tortured," and "procedurally improper and wholly without merit."
"It is apparent that Defendants' Application is a cynical attempt ... to shift responsibility to the Judiciary for over 20 years of Congressional inaction and ill-considered Executive action that have led to the current stalemate," she wrote.
The Justice Department did not immediately announce whether it intends to pursue an appeal, but it did voice displeasure with Gee's conclusions.
"We disagree with the court's ruling declining to amend the Flores Agreement to recognize the current crisis of families making the dangerous and unlawful journey across our southern border," department spokesman Devin O'Malley said in a statement to the media.
The ruling marked the second courtroom setback Monday for federal attorneys, who had acknowledged earlier in the day that authorities would fail to meet a deadline established by a separate court order. That deadline, set for Tuesday, had mandated that authorities return all of the youngest migrant children in federal custody to their parents. But attorneys told a San Diego courtroom Monday that officials would be able to reunite only about half of the 102 detained children who are under 5 years old.
It remains unclear what comes next for Trump and his immigration policy, which faces some of the same difficult problems that confronted his predecessor. As evidenced by the 2015 order based on Flores, President Barack Obama also struggled with the conundrum of how to prevent and prosecute illegal border crossings without detaining violators for excessive periods.
The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, eventually settled on a policy of releasing some immigrants while their legal proceedings unfold — but Trump has derided the practice as ineffective "catch and release."
At any rate, Gee maintained in her ruling that those deliberations, as difficult as they seem to be, are less important than the children affected by them.
"Regardless, what is certain is that the children who are the beneficiaries of the Flores Agreement's protections and who are now in Defendants' custody are blameless," she added. "They are subject to the decisions made by adults over whom they have no control. In implementing the Agreement, their best interests should be paramount."
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