After five years, the Law Foundation is no longer serving as co-counsel for the Flores Settlement Agreement, though our commitment to preserving child safety and family integrity remains.
We believe that every child deserves a champion, regardless of where they were born. Aligned with that belief is our value that families belong together.
The longstanding Flores settlement compels the government to promptly release detained children from federal immigration custody. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the need to release children quickly and effectively to reduce their risk of contracting coronavirus in often-crowded facilities.
However, releasing children should not be at the expense of keeping families together. The public health crisis has created catastrophic circumstances that jeopardize thousands of families. Parents must make the impossible decision to either release their children to a sponsor (and likely never see their child again) or keep their child in the detention facility. To date, all attempts to resolve the issue through the courts have been unsuccessful. Similarly, neither Congress nor the White House appears inclined to fix the problem.
The clear solution is to release children and their parents — keeping families together as a unit. The Law Foundation calls on Congress and the Administration to act immediately to preserve the physical well-being and mental health of these children and families.