CLINIC, together with 10 other nonprofit organizations that serve immigrant children, filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit in defense of critical protections for minors detained by the federal government pending their immigration proceedings.

In August 2019, the government finalized regulations which would roll back the basic minimum standards that protect children who are held in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and at ICE’s Family Detention Centers. However, the current framework for the protection of children in immigration custody comes from a 1997 Settlement Agreement, which requires any new standards to continue to implement the substantive terms of existing detention standards. The government’s new regulations unlawfully failed to implement the substance of the agreed-upon child welfare standards, and a federal judge ordered that the new regulations could not come into effect.

CLINIC and its nonprofit partners submitted this brief in Flores v. Barr to provide the court with their on-the-ground expertise regarding the adverse impact on children should the government be permitted to go forward with its new regulations.