RICHMOND, Va. (WFXR) — Attorney General Mark Herring (D-Va.) has joined a group of other attorneys general suing the Trump Administration over its planned changes to detention of children in the United States illegally.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, is lead by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, both Democrats.
At issue for Herring and the attorneys general in the suit is the Trump Administration’s plan to circumvent what is known as the Flores Settlement Agreement. The agreement says children should not be detained for longer than 20 days and while in detention, they should be kept in what Herring’s office called “guaranteed safe, human” conditions. The Trump Administration has said it plans to write its own rules which could allow for longer detention periods.
“The Trump Administration’s treatment of immigrant children has been inhumane and immoral,” Herring said. “For more than two decades the Flores Settlement Agreement has guaranteed a basic level of health, security, and safety for immigrant children, but now the Trump Administration is seeking to simply circumvent the settlement and abandon the protections it includes. These children do not have the ability to stand up for themselves against the Trump Administration, so we must do it for them.”