Lawyers negotiating the fate of the Obama administration's family detention program will extend talks for another week.
This is the second time that Department of Justice officials and lawyers for detained mothers and children have agreed to push back their deadline to determine under what circumstances mothers and children can be detained. The two sides were supposed to file a joint status report Friday. But without an agreement in hand, they will continue talks for another week. They plan to file a report by July 3.
In April, a federal judge in California found in a draft ruling that the administration’s family detention program violated parts of a 1997 agreement on detaining child migrants. Instead of issuing an official ruling, Judge Dolly Gee gave the lawyers 30 days to come up with a new deal that addressed those violations.
The administration operates three family detention centers in Berks County, Pa., and Karnes City and Dilley, Texas, holding more than 750 parents and children.