Federal Court Denies Motion to Intervene in Flores Case

ImmigrationProf bloggers (here, here, here, for example) have frequently updated our readers on developments in the enforcement of the 1997 settlement in the Flores litigation.  The settlement has played a big role in efforts to challenge the Trump administration’s various detention and related policies affecting minors.  The settlement of that case continues to set national standards for the detention, release, and treatment of immigrant children in federal custody. 

Courthouse News reports on recent drama in the Flores litigation that involves challenges to class counsel, not challenges to the policies of the U.S. government.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee denied a motion from nonprofit legal service providers to intervene in the Flores case.  Class members represented by the People’s Justice Center and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, sought to intervene in the case.  They claimed that the interests of the proposed intervenors were not being “adequately represented and irretrievably at odds with the inexplicable objective of class counsel” regarding an aim to develop a protocol that would waive a class member’s right to be released.  The group added that the worsening conditions at immigration facilities justified their motion to intervene.

Judge Gee denied the motion to intervene.  “Given the history of this litigation and the remarkable results of Class Counsel’s advocacy from the inception of this action 35 years ago through the onset of the pandemic, the Court finds that Class Counsel have provided more than adequate representation and that Proposed Plaintiff Intervenors’ interests will not be impaired by denying their application to intervene as of right at this time,” Gee wrote.

KJ