Academy of Child Psychiatrists as Flores amicus denounces indefinite detention of child migrants.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry leads a raft of twenty one organizations as amicus to denounce the Trump administration's new Rule issued August 22 and titled Apprehension, Processing, Care, and Custody of Alien Minors and Unaccompanied Alien Children
  It permits indefinite detention of migrant children and seeks to supplant the Flores settlement Agreement which has for over twenty years been the anchor for maintaining safe conditions for detained migrant children.

The friend of the court brief opens:

This matter arises from the Trump Administration’s effort to abandon the protections guaranteed children under the Flores Settlement Agreement “FSA”. Flores v. Reno, Case No. CV 85-4544-RJK(Px) (C.D. Cal. filed Jan. 17, 1997).1 Expressing disagreement with various court decisions implementing the FSA and ignoring the recommendations of its own DHS advisory committee (“Advisory Committee”) that “detention or the separation of families for purposes of immigration enforcement or management are never in the best interest of children,” 84 Fed. Reg. at 44,503, the Administration’s Rule seeks to expand the detention of children and to do so indefinitely.2

In other words, according to the Administration’s own experts, its Rule is directly contrary to the best interests of children. The primary purpose of the FSA is to protect immigrant children from harm. Indeed, the FSA explicitly states that the Administration is required to treat “all [children] in its custody with dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability as [children].” FSA ¶ 11. The FSA further emphasizes that detained children should be placed “in the least restrictive setting appropriate to the [child’s] age and special needs . . . .” Id. The seminal principles of dignity, respect, and least restrictive setting are also echoed in the FSA’s mandates regarding the release of immigrant children. More specifically, the FSA provides that an immigrant child should be released without unreasonable delay. FSA, ¶¶ 14, 18.