A federal judge on Monday pressed federal immigration officials to release children who are detained with their parents in three notorious migrant family jails across the U.S., making the court ruling the second in recent days addressing the urgency of the thousands of children who are currently in U.S. custody amid the coronavirus public health crisis.
Like U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee’s ruling last weekend urging the release of unaccompanied minors in Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg “stopped short of ordering the immediate release” of families from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, The Washington Post reported. But, like Gee, Boasberg made it clear he’s ready to take matters into his own hands if necessary.
The Post reported that Boasberg ordered federal immigration officials to inform him on their progress regarding the release of families from facilities in Pennsylvania and Texas, but indicated that “if there are cases in these centers or there are other problems that are not compliant,” he “will revisit” demands from a number of immigrant and refugee rights organizations that sued for the emergency release of families earlier this month.
In her ruling last weekend, Gee also ordered officials to turn over a progress report by April 10, and while she didn’t order the immediate release of thousands of kids from ORR custody “given current travel restrictions and the need to ensure that children are released to suitable sponsors, most often family members,” The New York Times reported, that may very well change, again based on the federal government’s response.
Children should have been among the first released from custody amid this crisis, yet officials have kept thousands detained in facilities that advocates say are a breeding ground for disease. In the lawsuit heard by Boasberg, Rapid Defense Network, ALDEA—The People’s Justice Center, and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) said “The families are trapped and at risk of serious irreparable physical harm.”
The Trump administration’s own guidelines tell the public to avoid crowds, wash their hands frequently and thoroughly, and to practice social distancing, but all of this has been impossible in migrant family jails like Berks County Residential Center in Pennsylvania, where advocates said officials refuse to fix broken soap dispensers and the only hand sanitizer in the facility in located in “areas that detainees are not permitted to access,” the lawsuit said.
As Amnesty International USA said, "Each day that a child is detained is a day that poses greater and greater risks.” The Los Angeles Times reported that four children in ORR custody have tested positive, while “Eight ORR personnel or foster parents in five programs in New York, Washington and Texas have also ‘self-reported’ testing positive for COVID-19.” The numbers will only continue to grow until someone steps up—and it may have to be the judges.