U.S. to Pay $1.2 Million in Attorneys Fees in Migrant Minors Case

Defending aggressive Trump administration border enforcement policies can be expensive.   Alyssa Aquino for Law360  reports that the Biden administration agreed to pay $1.15 million in fees to attorneys who successfully advocated for the safe custody of migrant children held in border detention facilities.

The settlement resolves non-profit attorneys' two-year old request to be reimbursed for work they completed in 2017 showing U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee that U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were holding children in cold temperatures, without adequate access to food, water and legal counsel while delaying their release. 

In June 2020, the attorneys also won the release of migrant children held in virus-infected family detention centers. The Trump administration moved to appeal that order, but the Biden administration dropped the appeal.

The motion for fees came in litigation concerning the treatment of children in immigrant detention. The lawsuit, brought in 1993, led to the Flores settlement, a bedrock agreement setting minimal standards of care for detained children. 

The plaintiffs are represented by Peter Schey and Carlos Holguin of the Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law; Bill Ong Hing of the University of San Francisco School of Law Immigration Clinic; Stephen Rosenbaum of La Raza Centro Legal Inc.; Neha Desai, Mishan Wroe, Melissa Adamson and Diane de Gramont of the National Center for Youth Law; and Leecia Welch of Children's Rights.

KJ