Migrant visitations at regional border sectors
For the next several weeks, the Flores Class Counsel will be visiting different border sectors to interview migrant children and families following the President’s Executive Order to keep families together.
The Flores Class Counsel started after a young girl from El Salvador sued the government and won after being detained for two months in conditions inappropriate for a child. The results ended up changing the law for migrant children who cannot be detained for longer than 20 days.
On Monday, the counsel came to visit the Yuma Border Sector to question children and families about the living conditions inside detention centers and their experience being processed. Because this is a private procedure, our cameras were not allowed inside the facility but a statement was provided from the Yuma Sector Border Patrol about their role in the process.
“Paragraph 32 of the Flores Agreement permits class counsel to make class access visits to facilities where class members are held, “in accordance with generally applicable policies and procedures relating to attorney-client visits at the facility in question.” Where CBP facilities have no such policies and procedures, CBP has nonetheless accommodated requests by Plaintiffs’ counsel to conduct such visits where it is possible to do so without disrupting the operations of the facility. At the request of Plaintiffs’ counsel, CBP is accommodating such visits at the Yuma Border Patrol Station on June 25 and 26.”
The assigned visitations come after President Trump signed an executive order to not separate families following the ‘zero tolerance policy’ splitting children from their parents for long periods of time at the Us-Mexico border.
According to the 1997 Flores settlement, the federal government is required to place children with a close relative or family friend without ‘unnecessary delay’ in the ‘least restrictive conditions’.
We are currently waiting for a response from the Flores Class Counsel in what they’ve uncovered during their visit.
