Expert: Courts 'Will Probably' Block Flores Final Rule

Brian Naylor, NPR, Aug. 21, 2019

"The Trump administration has announced it is ending a federal court agreement that limits how long migrant families with children can be detained.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan outlined the new policy Wednesday, which replaces the Flores settlement agreement.

That's been a longtime target of immigration hard-liners in the Trump administration, who contend the settlement has acted as a lure to families in Central America.

The new policy means that migrant families who are detained after crossing the border can be kept indefinitely, until their cases are decided.

... Moments after McAleenan made his announcement, Madhuri Grewal, a policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, called the new policy "yet another cruel attack on children, who the Trump administration has targeted again and again with its anti-immigrant policies ... Congress must not fund this."

Cornell University Law School professor Stephen Yale-Loehr said that courts "will probably" block implementation of the rule.

"Federal courts have struck down almost every effort this administration has made to curtail the rights of immigrants," he said in a statement. "When will President Trump realize that immigrants in the U.S. have due process rights?" "