WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Thursday that it plans to withdraw from a federal court agreement that strictly limits the conditions under which authorities can detain migrant children, and proposed new rules that it said would enable it to detain minors during their immigration proceedings. The Trump administration said Thursday it is preparing to circumvent limits on the government's ability to hold minors in immigration jails by withdrawing from the Flores Settlement Agreement, the federal consent decree that has shaped detention standards for underage migrants since 1997. Immigrants and their advocates are expected to mount legal challenges to the administration’s effort to exit the agreement, which has been interpreted over the years to set a 20-day limit on detaining children who entered the country illegally, and also requires facilities that house migrant children to be licensed by a state authority. But under changes proposed Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration said it would issue new regulations that “satisfy the basic purpose” of the Flores settlement and ensure migrant children “are treated with dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors.”

“Today, legal loopholes significantly hinder the Department’s ability to appropriately detain and promptly remove family units that have no legal basis to remain in the country,” said DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in a statement. The maneuver is almost certain to land the administration back in court, where U.S. District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee, who oversees the agreement, has rejected attempts to extend the amount of time migrant children can be held with their parents beyond the current limit of 20 days. The administration's plans to lift limits on child detention is likely to trigger new legal challenges and could revive still-simmering anger over the Trump administration's separation of 2,600 migrant children from their parents under a border crackdown this spring. After intense public outcry over the policy, the administration was forced to abandon it, but hundreds of children remain separated from parents who were deported without them. The regulation proposed on Thursday would create a new federal licensing system, so authorities could hold children with their parents in detention centers that are not licensed by state authorities to hold children. The proposal would circumvent rules established by a federal court settlement – known as the Flores settlement – that limited the detention of children and families for more than 20 days.
The Trump administration proposes regulatory changes which would allow the children of illegal immigrants to be imprisoned for more than 20 days.