Thread by @camiloreports

U.S. Judge Dolly Gee ordered DHS yesterday to cease using hotels as detention facilities for migrant children it seeks to expel from the border.

Gee said DHS can't "evade its obligations under the Flores Agreement by hiding behind" public health law. 1/
cbsnews.com/news/judge-rul…

If upheld, Gee's order will generally end the hotel detention system used by DHS to expel unaccompanied children and families under a public health CDC directive (there's an exception for ~2-day stays).

However, the order does not block DHS from continuing to expel children. 2/

The legality of expelling migrant children under public health law is being challenged in another federal court.

Gee, who oversees litigation over the 1997 Flores Agreement, is ordering DHS to transfer children to licensed facilities within 72 hours of apprehending them. 3/

For unaccompanied kids, that means being transferred to US refugee agency shelters.

For kids in families, it's less clear, since ICE family detention facilities are not licensed to care for minors.

The minors can still be expelled. Gee is saying they can't be held in hotels. 4/

The CDC's authority to give DHS the extraordinary power to expel migrant children, despite protections Congress created for them, will continue to be at the center of litigation.

Yesterday, HHS / CDC posted a rule to codify this emergency authority: s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspect… 5/

The rule says kids processed under public health law are not entitled to certain safeguards.

@ReichlinMelnick: "This regulation makes it clear that the CDC is fully complicit with the Trump admin's use of the COVID-19 pandemic to turn away refugees" end/
cbsnews.com/news/judge-rul…