A5
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019
Trump: US has
Trump administration moves
to end limits on child detention ‘very strong’ gun
background checks
By COLLEEN LONG
and AMY TAXIN
Associated Press
By JILL COLVIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
Trump administration is
moving to end a long-stand-
ing federal agreement that
limits how long immigrant
children can be kept in deten-
tion. A court fi ght will almost
certainly follow over the
government’s desire to hold
migrant families until their
cases are decided.
The current court agree-
ment now requires the gov-
ernment to keep children
in the least restrictive set-
ting and to release them as
quickly as possible, generally
after 20 days in detention.
Homeland Security offi -
cials say they are adopting
their own regulations that
refl ect the court’s “Flores
agreement,” which has been
in effect since 1997, and
there is no longer a need for
court involvement, which
was only meant to be tempo-
rary. But the new rules would
allow the government to hold
families in detention much
longer than 20 days.
It is the latest effort by
the administration to tighten
immigration, President Don-
ald Trump’s signature issue,
and is aimed at restricting the
movement of asylum seekers
in the country and deterring
more migrants from crossing
the border. The news imme-
diately generated fresh out-
rage, following reports of
dire conditions in detention
facilities, and it is question-
able whether courts will let
the administration move for-
ward with the policy.
Immigrant
advocates
decried the move and said
prolonged detention would
traumatize
immigrant
children.
“The government should
not be jailing kids, and cer-
tainly shouldn’t be seeking to
put more kids in jail for lon-
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Immigrants play soccer at the U.S. government’s newest holding center for migrant children in
Carrizo Springs, Texas.
ger,” said Madhuri Grewal,
policy counsel for the Ameri-
can Civil Liberties Union.
Peter Schey, a lawyer for
the immigrant children in the
Flores case and president of
the Center for Human Rights
and Constitutional Law, said
if the regulations don’t match
the settlement in that case,
“they would be in immediate
material breach, if not con-
tempt of court.”
“I think all these things
are now part of the 2020
campaign,” Schey said.
Acting Homeland Secu-
rity
Secretary
Kevin
McAleenan said Wednesday
the regulations create higher
standards to govern family
detention facilities. The facil-
ities will be regularly audited,
and the audits made public.
The
regulations
are
expected to be formally pub-
lished Friday and go into
effect in 60 days absent legal
challenges.
They follow moves last
week to broaden the defi ni-
tion of a “public charge” to
include immigrants on pub-
lic assistance, potentially
denying green cards to more
immigrants. There was also
a recent effort to effectively
end asylum altogether at the
southern border.
The Flores agreement is a
constant talking point by the
president and his administra-
tion, which claims it is a loop-
hole that encourages migrants
to make a dangerous and
potentially deadly journey
to the U.S. The district judge
overseeing the agreement
has already refused govern-
ment requests to increase
the amount of time children
can be detained, and advo-
cates moved to block the reg-
ulations when the proposed
rule was fi rst announced last
September.
There has been a dras-
tic increase in the number
of families crossing the bor-
der — about 475,000 so far
this budget year, nearly three
times the previous full-year
record for families. Most are
released into the U.S. while
their asylum requests wind
through the courts — a prac-
tice Trump has derided as
“catch-and-release.”
The Flores agreement has
been into effect since 1997
but mostly applied to chil-
dren who came to the coun-
try alone. In 2015, U.S. Dis-
trict Court Judge Dolly Ghee
ruled the requirements were
applicable to children who
crossed the border with fam-
ilies, after the Obama admin-
istration built family deten-
tion centers and started
detaining families until their
cases were completed.
Part of the issue was that
children could not be kept
in facilities that weren’t
licensed, and no states license
family detention centers.
Homeland Security offi cials
say by adopting the stan-
dards for education, healthy
food and cleanliness used by
U.S. Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement, which
detains adult immigrants,
they are satisfying require-
ments in lieu of state licens-
ing requirements.
Homeland Security did
not say how long it expects
families to be kept, but
McAleenan said under the
previous administration it
was about 50 days.
McAleenan said there was
“no intent to hold families for
a long period of time. The
intent is for a fair and expedi-
tious proceeding.”
WASHINGTON
—
President Donald Trump is
insisting that the U.S. already
has “very, very strong back-
ground checks” for gun pur-
chases. It’s the latest sign
that he is backing away from
throwing his political sup-
port behind changes to the
system that are opposed by
the powerful gun lobby.
Speaking to reporters
in the Oval Offi ce, Trump
also noted “a lot of the peo-
ple that put me where I am
are strong believers in the
Second Amendment,” and
he suggested he worries
about blurring the contrast
between Republicans and
Democrats on the issue.
“We have to be very care-
ful about that,” he said.
A gradual rhetorical soft-
ening by Trump has taken
place in the more than two
weeks since gunmen opened
fi re in El Paso, Texas, then
in Dayton, Ohio, leaving
more than 30 people dead.
Trump said in the tragedies’
wake that he was eager to
implement “very meaning-
ful background checks” and
told reporters there was “tre-
mendous support” for action.
“We don’t want people
that are mentally ill, peo-
ple that are sick — we don’t
want them having guns,” he
said.
But in the days since,
Trump has changed his tone.
He said that, while the cur-
rent system has “sort of
missing areas and areas that
don’t complete the whole
circle,” it is overall “very,
very strong” — even though
federal law only requires
background checks for guns
sold through licensed fi re-
arm dealers.
And he said he worried
about the potential risk of a
“slippery slope,” where “all
of a sudden everything gets
taken away.” Just 11 days
earlier Trump dismissed that
very same “slippery slope”
thinking, which he attributed
to the National Rifl e Asso-
ciation. “I don’t agree with
that,” he said then.
The waffl ing drew anger
from Democrats, includ-
ing Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer, who said
if Trump is serious about
action he should call on Sen-
ate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell to put a House-
passed background checks
bill up for vote.
“These retreats are heart-
breaking, particularly for
the families of the victims
of gun violence,” Schumer
tweeted.
Republicans have refused
to take up several Demo-
cratic-backed gun control
bills that passed the House,
and historically they have
opposed many efforts to
strengthen the nation’s gun
laws.
Sen. Chris Murphy,
D-Conn., who spoke with
Trump last week, said the
president expressed sup-
port then for working across
the aisle “to come up with
a background checks bill
that can pass the Senate
and save lives.” While he
said he would wait to hear
from Trump again directly,
he compared the episode to
Trump’s fl ip-fl op on back-
ground checks following the
Parkland, Florida, shooting
after intervention from the
NRA.
“It’s time for Republi-
cans and President Trump
to decide whose side they’re
on,” Murphy said in a state-
ment. “Are they going to
stand with the 90% of Amer-
icans who want universal
background checks, or are
they going to once again
kowtow to the desires of the
gun lobby?”
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