April 5, 2024
A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that border officials are responsible for the welfare of children sheltering in makeshift encampments on the California side of the U.S.-Mexico border. Judge Dolly Gee said that even though the Border Patrol didn’t create the camps, the adults and minors there are still considered under Border Patrol custody because agents are monitoring them and telling them where to go.
Reporting from NPR network station KQED in San Francisco, Tyche Hendricks says this ruling is significant because a legal settlement from the 90s known as the Flores settlement requires the government to provide safe and sanitary conditions to children who are in immigration custody. Hendricks speaks to Lee-sha Welch of Children’s Rights, one of the lawyers who asked Judge Gee to weigh in on these children’s treatment. Welch says this case isn’t about politics but “how we as a country want to take care of children.”