A California court ruling could set free more than 1,700 women and children who are being held by the Department of Homeland Security in facilities in the town of Dilley and Karnes County, Texas. As of Monday, immigration judges were getting the word out to release these families, as part of a court decision inCalifornia that struck down the Obama administrations policy regarding the handling of Central American illegal immigrant families and unaccompanied minors.
The Flores decision of 1993 would define these families as “unlawfully detained”, and Judges began ordering the release of nine families on conditional parole, without bail. No word on when they will actually be released from the facilities, according to an article in the San Antonio Express-News.
A pro-bono legal team made up of four groups including, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Immigration Council, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, had sent a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raising a number of complaints, including the delayed releases.
In the story from the Express-News, the Department of Homeland Security , which oversees ICE, hasn’t said if it will appeal the ruling. A spokeswoman said Saturday that the department is “reviewing it in consultation with the Department of Justice.”
Federal Judge Dolly Gee, California Central District Court, ruled that ICE had violated the 1997 Flores decision. She said ICE is violating the court’s orders on how juveniles in the custody of ICE are supposed to be treated, according to the Catholic Sentinel.
Gee found it “astonishing that the defendants have enacted a policy requiring such expensive infrastructure without more evidence to show that it would be compliant with an agreement that has been in effect for nearly 20 years or effective at achieving what defendants hoped it would accomplish,” the Sentinel reported.
The two Texas facilities are operated by large for-profit commercial prison companies. The Karnes County Residential Center is operated by the Geo Group. The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley is operated by the nation’s largest for-profit commercial prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
Breitbart Texas reporter Bob Price visited the Dilley facility on Sunday while returning from the Laredo Sector of the Texas/Mexico Border. While photographing the outside of the facility from a public street, he was ordered to leave and told he could not take pictures of the complex.
