immigrants

Nearly 600 immigrant children were held in a Texas family detention center in recent months without enough food, medical care or mental health services, as their time inside stretched beyond court-mandated limits, according to court documents.

Children and families held at the detention facility in Dilley, where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were sent this year, also faced virus outbreaks and lasting lockdowns in December and January, although the total number of children held there has fallen in recent weeks, according to the attorney reports and site visits.

The case of Liam, a preschooler who was wearing a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack when he was picked up in Minnesota by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, stoked protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, including among detainees who gathered and held up signs in the yard behind the Dilley facility’s chain-link fences.

Last week about 85 children remained detained at the Dilley facility, but concerning conditions continued, said Mishan Wroe, directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, who visited in mid-March. In early February, a legal advocate for the children observed about 280 children.

The filings Friday cited numerous poignant cases, including that of a 13-year-old girl held at Dilley who tried to take her own life after staff withheld prescribed antidepressants and denied her request to join her mother, as reported by the Associated Press. The government reported there had been “no placements on suicide watch,” according to the filing. The AP obtained Dilley facility discharge documents that described a “suicide attempt by cutting of wrist” and “self-harm.”

The filings were submitted in a lawsuit launched in 1985 that led to the creation in 1997 of court-ordered supervision of standards and eventually established a 20-day limit in custody. The Trump administration seeks to end the Flores settlement, as it is known.

“For years, the Flores consent decree has been a tool of the left that is antithetical to the law and wastes valuable U.S. taxpayer funded resources,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “Being in detention is a choice.”

Attorneys for detainees highlighted the government’s data showing longer custody times for immigrant children, and also cited worms in food and poor access to medical care or sufficient legal counsel as reported by families and monitors at federal facilities.

“Dilley remains a hellhole,” said Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at Children’s Rights, who visits the center regularly to ensure compliance. “Although the number of children has decreased, the suffering remains the same.”

The Homeland Security spokesperson said the Dilley facility is retrofitted for families, who receive basic necessities including adequate food and water while in detention, and the Trump administration is working to quickly deport detainees.

A report from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed that about 595 immigrant children were held in custody for more than the 20-day limit in December and January, with some stretching into months, per the court filings.

“Approximately 265 of these children were detained for more than 50 days and a shocking 55 children were detained more than 100 days,” the filings state.

That is up from a previous government disclosure late last year that showed that from August to September, 400 children had been held at the Dilley facility beyond the 20-day limit. Homeland Security did not respond to questions seeking comment on the data.

Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California is scheduled to hold a hearing on the case later this month.

Burke writes for the Associated Press.

BOSTON — A U.S. court ruling in Massachusetts has temporarily paused the looming termination of Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Somalia.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs’ ruling Friday said there would be “weighty” consequences if Somalia’s TPS designation were allowed to expire Tuesday. Advocates filed an emergency motion in federal court seeking to pause the termination after the Trump administration promised to end the designation last month during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where many Somalis live.

“Over one thousand people will face ‘a myriad of grave risks,’ including detention and deportation, physical violence if removed to Somalia, and forced separation from family members,” the ruling said.

Burroughs said implementing an administrative stay and deferring ruling on the postponement gives both sides time to file briefs on the emergency motion.

“While the stay is in effect, the termination shall be null, void, and of no legal effect,” the ruling said, noting that those with TPS status or pending applications will retain rights including eligibility for work authorization and protection against deportation and detention.

In a statement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the ruling is the latest example of a judge preventing Trump from “restoring integrity” to the U.S. immigration system.

“Temporary means temporary,” the statement said. “Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status. Allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. The Trump administration is putting Americans first.”

Representatives of the plaintiffs fighting the termination said in a statement that even though the order is temporary and “many battles lie ahead,” they are “heartened by the interim protection today’s order affords all Somali people in the U.S. who have TPS or pending TPS applications.”

TOPEKA, Kan. — A Kansas town known for its prisons is allowing a shuttered private prison to reopen and house immigrants detained for living in the U.S. illegally after a nearly yearlong legal fight amid a massive national push for new detention centers.

The City Commission in Leavenworth on Tuesday approved a permit to private prison operator CoreCivic. Members voted 4 to 1 to approve a three-year permit with conditions that set minimum staffing levels, ban the housing of minors and provide for a city oversight committee.

“If they don’t follow those guidelines, we can pull the permit,” Mayor Nancy Bauder said before the vote.

The 1,104-bed Midwest Regional Reception Center is 10 miles west of the Kansas City International Airport. CoreCivic, one of the nation’s largest private prison operators, said the center will generate $60 million annually once it’s fully open.

Leavenworth, Kan., sued CoreCivic after it tried to reopen the shuttered prison without city officials signing off on the deal.

The legal battle played out in state and federal courts, with the Department of Justice siding with CoreCivic in legal filings. The department argued that the city was engaged in an “aggressive and unlawful effort” to “interfere with federal immigration enforcement.”

It appears to be the only such legal battle nationally to delay a private prison from opening amid President Trump’s push for mass deportations. The city argued that requiring a permit would prevent future problems, while CoreCivic maintained that it didn’t need a permit and the process would take too long.

Leavenworth was an unlikely foe because the GOP-leaning city’s name alone evokes a shorthand for serving hard time. Prisons employ hundreds of workers locally at two military facilities, the nation’s first federal penitentiary, a Kansas correctional facility and a county jail, all within six miles of City Hall.

CoreCivic stopped housing pretrial detainees for the U.S. Marshals Service in its Leavenworth facility in 2021 after then-President Joe Biden called on the Justice Department to curb the use of private prisons. The American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders said inmates’ rights had been violated and there were stabbings, suicides and even one homicide.

The city’s lawsuit described detainees locked in showers as punishment and accused CoreCivic of impeding city police force investigations of sexual assaults and other violent crimes.

Almost four dozen people spoke in opposition to the permit before the commission’s vote. Bauder admonished the crowd several times for being too noisy, and police removed a protester who yelled vulgar comments.

“We, we the people of Leavenworth, are not fooled and we don’t care about their money,” David Benitez, a city resident, told the commission.

Some backers of the permit cited the potential boost to the local economy. Two CoreCivic employees argued for approval, and one of them, Charles Johnson, of Kansas City, Kan., said his job gave him purpose and allowed his family to get off of state assistance.

“The people I work alongside are caring, professional and committed to doing things the right way,” he said, his comments drawing boos from critics outside the commission’s meeting room.

City Commissioner Holly Pittman said because the city “stood firm,” it could negotiate conditions on the permit. She said denying it would risk a potentially expensive lawsuit.

“I will not gamble the financial stability of this city,” she said before voting yes. “Let me be clear: Approval does not mean endorsement.”

Hollingsworth and Hanna write for the Associated Press. Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kan.

WASHINGTON — A year into the Trump administration’s ratcheted-up mass deportation effort, approval rates for asylum seekers have plummeted as immigrants are too afraid to show up for court hearings.

Fewer than 3% of asylum cases decided in January were approved — a record low, according to Mobile Pathways, a San Francisco nonprofit that analyzes federal immigration data. That’s compared with an 18% approval rate in January 2025.

Nationally, 20% of immigrants seeking asylum missed their hearings in January, compared with half that rate a year earlier. Asylum seekers with pending applications are in the country legally, but under federal law, failing to appear for a hearing can result in a deportation order.

In Los Angeles County immigration courts — among the largest in the country — the trend is substantially starker: no-shows made up 56% of the asylum hearings in January, compared with 14% a year earlier.

“That’s not fluctuation,” said Bartlomiej Skorupa, chief operating officer of Mobile Pathways. “That’s collapse.”

A Justice Department spokesperson said the Trump administration is restoring integrity to immigration courts.

As of December, nearly 3.4 million cases were pending in immigration courts, with more than 2.3 million of them asylum cases, according to TRAC, a data research organization.

The rise in the number of people avoiding asylum hearings helps explain another trend in the immigration court system. Over the last year, the number of asylum cases marked “abandoned” has doubled.

Immigration attorneys say cases can be classified as abandoned for various reasons: An applicant missed a deadline, filled out a form incorrectly, or just decided to leave the U.S.

But the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency that administers immigration courts, can label a case abandoned if the applicant fails to show up for a hearing. Nationwide, the number of cases considered abandoned doubled over the last year to make up about 41% of those decided in January.

It takes an average of four years for immigrants to receive an asylum hearing, though a final decision can take longer with appeals, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

During the Biden administration, most asylum claims were not issued decisions by an immigration judge; instead, many were administratively closed, or paused and taken off judges’ dockets. While the case is inactive, the person can remain in the U.S., work legally and pursue other avenues of relief.

But such a policy is vulnerable to being reversed by a subsequent administration, Migration Policy Institute experts wrote in a November report.

Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles, said the increase in no-shows is in part because the Trump administration began reopening asylum cases that had been administratively closed for many years.

Many of those people are no longer in contact with their attorney, if they had one, and would be difficult to notify of a new hearing.

A decade ago, a significant portion of asylum seekers came from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras, many of whom settled in Southern California.

Since President Trump returned to the White House, Los Angeles was one of the earliest cities where federal agents began arresting immigrants at courthouses. Immigrants have become afraid to engage with any law enforcement authorities, Toczylowski said.

The government’s goal, she said, “is not due process or pursuing justice for people in immigration courts — it’s deportation orders. If people don’t show up in court, that’s a way for them to meet their metrics.”

Immigration courts are housed within the Department of Justice and judges have long complained that they lack full independence from executive branch overreach. The department disputes that, saying judges are independent adjudicators who decide cases individually.

More than 100 immigration judges have been fired since Trump took office and about the same number have resigned or retired, according to the union representing immigration judges. That’s down from 735 judges in last fiscal year.

Last summer, the Pentagon authorized up to 600 military lawyers to work for the Department of Justice after removing the requirement for temporary immigration judges to have immigration law experience.

Jeremiah Johnson, a former immigration judge who was fired last year from the San Francisco Immigration Court, said the 3% asylum grant rate in January is shockingly low.

Johnson, who was vice president of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges, said decisions by the Board of Immigration Appeals throughout the last several months have limited asylum law. Immigration judges must abide by the precedent set in those cases.

One such case, for example, reverses prior interpretations to now limit gender-based asylum, finding that persecution claims based solely on gender, or gender combined with nationality, don’t generally don’t meet the definition of a “particular social group” — one of the five categories under U.S. asylum law.

Another factor contributing to lowered asylum approvals, he said, is that the federal government has started seeking to dismiss asylum cases by forcing migrants to start over in a “safe third country.”

These requests stem from the increasing number of so-called asylum cooperative agreements, which allow federal officials to send certain migrants to other countries — including less stable places such as Honduras, Uganda and Ecuador — instead of continuing to seek asylum in the U.S.

“It has really been a restriction in the availability for asylum and other related protection,” he said.

Kathleen Bush-Joseph, one of the authors of the Migration Policy Institute report, pointed to a post last month on X by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who said that asylum “is limited to individuals fleeing extremely narrow categories of state persecution.”

“None of the groups illegally crossing the border fit that criteria,” Miller wrote. “No one in Mexico or Ecuador or Honduras etc live in nations where there is any state persecution of any protected class.”

But Bush-Joseph cautioned that it’s not yet clear whether the Trump administration’s asylum changes are legal.

“Even though there are executive actions in place that are restricting access to asylum, those are being challenged in court and I don’t think that we know how all of this will turn out,” she said. “A lot of people are being deported in the meantime and they may not get the chance to come back.”