The Flores Settlement Agreement: Requirements, Status, and Compliance

The Flores Settlement Agreement is a 1997 federal court consent decree that sets nationwide minimum standards for how the U.S. government detains, treats, and releases immigrant children in its custody. It requires prompt release to family when possible, placement in the least restrictive licensed setting when not, humane conditions, and a general 20-day cap on holding children in immigration detention. Nearly three decades after it was signed, it is still binding, still supervised by a federal judge in California, and still the subject of active litigation in 2026.

Where the Agreement Came From

In 1985, Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old who had fled the Salvadoran Civil War to join her mother in California, was arrested near San Ysidro by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She was handcuffed, strip-searched, and detained in a makeshift facility at a Pasadena motel alongside unrelated adults. INS refused to release her to a cousin, insisting only a parent or legal guardian could take custody, and denied her educational and medical care.¹²

Attorneys with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and the National Center for Youth Law filed a class action on her behalf. At the time, INS was detaining roughly 5,000 children a year.²³⁴

The Court did not address detention conditions because a 1987 consent decree already required INS to place juveniles in state-licensed facilities meeting child welfare standards within 72 hours of arrest.⁴ After the ruling, the Clinton administration negotiated a comprehensive settlement with the plaintiffs. It was finalized on January 17, 1997.⁵

What the Agreement Requires

The settlement created binding, nationwide standards for every child in federal immigration custody. Its core requirements are:

Release without unnecessary delay, following a preference hierarchy that runs from parents to other adult relatives to licensed programs willing to accept custody.⁶
Placement in the least restrictive setting appropriate to a child’s age and needs when release is not possible, generally a non-secure, state-licensed child welfare facility.⁵
Treatment of all minors “with dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability,” including adequate meals, clean water, clothing, education, medical care, and access to family reunification services.⁷
A 20-day ceiling on immigration detention, with transfer to a licensed facility required within three to five days of apprehension. A 20-day extension is permitted only during a genuine emergency or influx, and only if the government acts in good faith.⁶
Independent monitoring by plaintiffs’ counsel, who are the only non-governmental attorneys permitted to inspect detention sites nationwide and interview minors to verify compliance.⁵

Who It Covers

The agreement binds every federal agency that inherited INS’s functions: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services.⁵

For years, the government argued the settlement covered only unaccompanied children. That argument failed in 2015. On August 11, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California, who has supervised the case since the death of the original judge, ruled in Flores v. Johnson that the protections also apply to children detained with a parent.⁸² The 20-day limit, in other words, applies to families. In 2016, the Ninth Circuit affirmed that Flores protects both accompanied and unaccompanied children and requires transfer to non-secure, licensed facilities within five days, or as quickly as possible during emergencies.⁹

Repeated Attempts To End It

The agreement has survived multiple efforts to replace or terminate it.

On August 21, 2019, the first Trump administration published a final regulation designed to supplant Flores entirely. It sought to eliminate the 20-day detention limit and create a federal licensing standard for family detention that would bypass existing state standards. On September 27, 2019, Judge Gee blocked the rule with a permanent injunction. She called Flores a “binding contract and a consent decree” and a “final, binding judgment that was never appealed,” and found that the regulations did not implement the agreement but “intentionally subvert it.” She wrote: “Defendants cannot simply impose their will by promulgating regulations that abrogate the consent decree’s most basic tenets. That violates the rule of law. And that this Court cannot permit.”¹⁰

The Biden administration took a different path. In December 2021, it abandoned the 2019 regulations and pursued new rulemaking meant to codify Flores protections and eventually allow parts of the court-supervised agreement to end.¹¹ HHS published its “ORR Foundational Rule” on April 30, 2024, effective July 1, 2024.¹² On June 28, 2024, Judge Gee partially granted the government’s motion to terminate the agreement as to HHS, ending it for most children in HHS custody but keeping it in force for children in secure facilities, heightened supervision facilities, and out-of-network placements such as residential treatment centers. The settlement remained fully in force for all children in DHS custody.¹³

In May 2025, the Justice Department moved again to terminate the settlement in full. Judge Gee denied the motion on August 15, 2025. She found “no meaningful change either in factual conditions or in law since their last motion to terminate” and concluded that neither DHS nor HHS had shown “sufficiently substantial compliance to warrant termination.” She acknowledged some improvement in conditions but treated it as evidence the agreement was working: “To suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical.”¹⁴

Where the Case Stands in 2026

The government has appealed Judge Gee’s August 2025 denial to the Ninth Circuit, docketed as Flores v. Bondi, No. 25-6308. As of mid-2026, the appeal is awaiting oral argument, with no decision issued. The government argues that the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in July 2025, is a changed circumstance justifying termination because it addresses detention of immigrant families and children.¹⁵ In January 2026, a coalition of 20 states and the District of Columbia filed an amicus brief opposing termination, arguing that the agreement’s state licensing requirement is a “material provision” protecting children from substandard conditions in facilities that fail state child welfare standards.¹⁶

Compliance Problems on the Ground

While the appeal is pending, the district court continues to hear compliance disputes, and the numbers coming into court have grown.

Judge Gee’s August 2025 hearing recorded significant violations of the 72-hour limit for holding children in CBP facilities. In March and April 2025, 213 children were held beyond 72 hours. In May 2025, 46 children were held for over a week, six for over two weeks, and four for 19 days.¹⁴

By January 2026, DHS had confined more than 900 children in family detention centers for longer than 20 days. Roughly 270 had been held over 40 days. Some families reported detentions exceeding nine months.¹⁷ For unaccompanied children, the average length of care in federal custody reached 117 days in fiscal year 2025, up from a prior range of 27 to 69 days.¹⁶

On January 30, 2025, Judge Gee extended the 2022 CBP compliance settlement’s termination date by 18 months to July 29, 2026, and extended the Juvenile Care Monitor’s term through June 27, 2025, finding CBP “not yet capable of wholly fulfilling its responsibilities under the 2022 Settlement and the FSA without the additional support provided by the JCM and the Court.”¹⁸ The Juvenile Care Monitor’s May 2025 report flagged compliance failures in the El Paso sector on temperature control and age-appropriate meals, a “major reduction” in the caregiver program, and ongoing concerns about the accuracy of CBP detention data.¹⁹

As of May 2026, plaintiffs’ counsel reported that children were being held in hotels for extended periods without outdoor access, mental health services, or meaningful access to attorneys, and that ICE was preventing families from contacting lawyers by not disclosing their locations. A hearing on these disputes was scheduled for May 22, 2026, before Judge Gee.²⁰ More than four decades after it began with a teenager held in a Pasadena motel, the Flores case remains active in both the district court and the Ninth Circuit.

1
Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. The Flores Settlement
2
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. The Flores Saga
3
Oyez. Reno v. Flores
4
Cornell Law Institute. Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292
5
Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. Flores Settlement
6
Human Rights First. The Flores Settlement and Family Incarceration
7
HIAS. Flores Backgrounder
8
Youth Law Center. Judge Rules for Immigrant Children
9
Child Welfare League of America. History and Update on Flores Settlement
10
Child Welfare League of America. Court Upholds Flores Protections
11
American Immigration Lawyers Association. Flores v. Reno Settlement Agreement
12
National Immigrant Justice Center. Explainer: Final Regulations on Care of Unaccompanied Children
13
American Bar Association. Flores Settlement Agreement Addendum
14
CNN. Judge Denies Trump Administration Request To End Flores Settlement
15
The Constitutional Accountability Center. Flores v. Bondi
16
Office of the Attorney General, State of California. Flores Amicus Brief
17
Immigration Policy Tracking Project. Administration Once Again Tries To Terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement
18
VOA News. Judge Extends Court Monitoring Agreement for Children in CBP Custody
19
National Center for Youth Law. Interim Juvenile Care Monitor Report
20
National Center for Youth Law. Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Motion to Reconsider