AG Brown opposes federal efforts to prolong detention of immigrant children

Attorney General Nick Brown today joined a multistate coalition of 20 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief opposing the Trump administration’s efforts to terminate a nearly 30-year-old settlement agreement that provides crucial protections against the inappropriate detention of children, including a requirement that they are held in facilities licensed in and subject to oversight by the states in which they reside. 

In May 2025, the Trump Administration moved to terminate the Flores settlement agreement with the goal of expanding family detention and increasing the duration of child detention. In a brief filed today, Brown and the coalition urge the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to block the administration’s latest attempt to end the agreement and to prevent the administration from keeping children in prolonged and unnecessary detention. 

“This administration has done nothing to earn the public trust and ensure that detained immigrant children will be treated fairly or humanely if these terms are overturned,” Brown said. “Oversight is crucial to ensure their well-being.”

Since 1997, the Flores settlement agreement has promoted the safety and wellbeing of children in immigration custody through the enforcement of state child welfare laws. The agreement requires that children be held in state-licensed facilities under oversight, released without unnecessary delay to parents, guardians, or licensed programs, and placed in the least restrictive setting appropriate to their age and needs. It also sets standards for education, recreation, and overall care, establishes conditions of confinement, and provides monitoring to protect children while in custody.

In 2018, Washington led a coalition of 18 states in a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against the first Trump administration’s policy of forced family separation on the U.S. southern border. In 2019, Washington again sued the federal administration when it attempted to terminate the Flores settlement agreement and remove critical protections for detained immigration children and allow for wholesale detention of families. 

Along with other states, Washington supported other litigation challenges to these actions, and a U.S. District Court halted almost all of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s new regulations and declined to terminate the Flores settlement agreement. Over time, some claims were resolved, and in 2024, the Biden administration adopted new rules that restored and strengthened protections for unaccompanied children. 

Upon re-entering office, the Trump administration once again tried to completely terminate the Flores settlement agreement and revert to the 2019 Department of Homeland Security rule. After this action was rejected by a district court, the federal government appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit.

In the brief, Brown and the coalition argue that the administration’s attempt to terminate the agreement interferes with states’ traditional and sovereign role to help ensure the health, safety, and welfare of children by undermining state licensing requirements for facilities where children are held. 

The termination would result in the vast expansion of family detention centers, which are not state licensed facilities and have historically caused increased trauma in children, and prolong the time children spend in immigration detention. This can cause significant long-term harm to their physical, mental, and emotional health, disrupt their development and educational needs, and increase burdens to the states that provide services to support them.

In filing the amicus brief, Brown joins the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Vermont.

Read the brief here.

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