Judge: US Violates Agreement in Detention of Immigrant Kids

A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice’s current system of detaining children with their mothers after they’ve crossed the U.S.-Mexico border violates an 18-year-old court settlement

Central American immigrants arrive on top of a freight train to Ixtepec, Mexico, on August 6, 2013. John Moore/Getty Images

LOS ANGELES—A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice’s current system of detaining children with their mothers after they’ve crossed the U.S.-Mexico border violates an 18-year-old court settlement.

The decision Friday by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in California is a victory for the immigrant rights lawyers who brought the case, but its immediate implications for detainees were not yet clear. The ruling upholds a tentative decision Gee made in April, and comes a week after the two sides told her that they failed to reach a new settlement agreement as she'd asked for.

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