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Groups that sued for the release of detained children and families said staying safe during this pandemic has been impossible in facilities like Pennsylvania’s Berks County Residential Center. Broken soap dispensers in rooms “have not been fixed despite their requests,” the lawsuit said, and “hand sanitizer is only freely provided in the lobby and legal visitation room at Berks Center—two areas that detainees are not permitted to access.”
These facilities are unfit for families on any other day, much less during a pandemic. Yet officials have been reducing population numbers mostly under pressure from advocates and legal action. “Boasberg said about 620 family members—including 285 children—remain at the three facilities that hold families in Texas and Pennsylvania—down from 1,350 about two weeks ago and 826 last week,” The Post continued. “The order by Boasberg expanded on similar rulings by U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee of Los Angeles in a long-running lawsuit over ICE custody of children.”
Just days ago, Gee further ruled the Trump administration had violated the Flores agreement ensuring the protection of detained children, saying officials have not been acting quickly enough to release families. She quoted a medical expert from litigation around the detention of children, writing: “Postponing the release of children in facilities with known COVID-19 exposure is like leaving them in a burning house rather than going in to rescue them and take them to safety.”
“I think Judge Gee’s order will result in an acceleration of the release of both accompanied and unaccompanied minors in the coming days and weeks as the judge made very clear the government’s current policies are in breach of the settlement,” Peter Schey, an attorney in the litigation against the administration, told CBS News. “The order will put pressure on them to not slow down their releases of children in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
