Ninth Circuit Leaves Flores Settlement Intact

The Flores settlement, which governs the detention of migrant children, lives.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today rejected the latest challenges to the settlement:

“In the latest iteration of this decades-long litigation, the district court issued two orders enforcing the consent decree incorporating the Flores Agreement. The orders enjoined the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) from detaining certain minors in hotels for more than a few days in the process of expelling them from the United States. We conclude that the district court’s second order was a final decision for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we therefore have jurisdiction to review it. As the district court did not err in requiring DHS to apply the Flores Agreement to these minors, we affirm the district court’s order.”  

KJ