Trump Proposes Indefinite Detention of Immigrant Families

FEATURING PETER SCHEY – The Trump Administration on Friday introduced a new regulation to place into detention whole families that cross the US border without papers, indefinitely. The regulation would overturn the so-called Flores Settlement, a court agreement dating back to 1997. Despite the overwhelming public outcry over family separation earlier this year Trump’s White House wants to hold parents and their children in detention facilities that are essentially prisons.

It was the Flores Settlement that the Trump Administration claimed led to the separation of parents from children because Trump had deemed parents must be imprisoned but children could not be as per Flores. So rather than not imprison anyone for the civil (not criminal) violations of immigration law, Trump now wants to put kids in prison – albeit with their parents. The new regulation also aims to hold families in prisons that have not been formally licensed to hold children. A 60-day public comment period began Friday while the original plaintiffs in the Flores case have 45 days to legally challenge the regulation.

Peter Schey, President and Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law Foundation, one of the lead attorneys representing detained children in the Flores case

>>Click here to submit a formal complaint to the US government on its proposed regulation to detain immigrant families indefinitely including children.

Find out more about Peter Schey’s organization at www.centerforhumanrights.org