The Issue

In Lucas R. v. Azar, The Center for Human Rights along with the National Center for Youth Law, the U.C. Davis Legal Clinic, and Cooley LLP, challenged policies and practices of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). ORR, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), holds unaccompanied children after they are released from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody at the border. Children end up stuck in ORR for months or years when they do not have a sponsor to be released to or when they are “stepped up” to more secure facilities. Lucas has won more due process protections for children denied release, as well as protection for children with disabilities in ORR custody.

 

Lucas challenged ORR’s practices of:

 

• Unlawfully placing children in unnecessarily restrictive facilities, such as juvenile halls or psychiatric facilities, without any evidence that these children pose a danger or flight risk, and without providing an opportunity for an administrative hearing to justify such placement.

• Refusing to release children to parents or other available custodians within 30 days of submission of a complete family reunification packet because ORR alleges the custodian to be unfit, without an opportunity for an administrative hearing regarding the justification for continuing to detain such children.

• Unlawfully prescribing or administering psychotropic drugs without their parents’ informed consent or other procedural safeguards.

• Impeding children from non-contiguous countries access to legal assistance in matters involving their custody, placement, release, and/or administration of psychotropic drugs.

• Unlawfully placing children in restrictive facilities because of their behavioral, mental health, intellectual, and/or developmental disability. Such action on behalf of the government negates the needs of these children and causes prolonged detention by heightening the restrictive barriers towards their release.  

• Denying potential sponsors without a meaningful opportunity to appeal the denial.

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Updates

 

• In March 2022, the Court granted Plaintiffs partial summary judgment, and on August 30, 2022, preliminarily enjoined ORR to adhere to the terms of the summary judgment. This preliminary injunction included protections for children subjected to restrictive or step-up facilities and protections for the due process rights of youth challenging prolonged detention. It also included improvements for children whose guardians applied to sponsor them and were denied. It provided due process protections, rights to have a determination reviewed, and expedited determinations for loved ones and sponsors petitioning to bring a child home. 

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• In November 2024, Parties announced three settlements that have resolved the remaining legal disputes. 

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• On September 16, 2024, the Court issued a Final Judgment in Lucas R. With respect to the claims of the first "unfit custodian" class and the second "step-up" class, which had been addressed in the earlier Summary Judgment and Preliminary Injunction but not in the Settlements, the Court issued a Declaratory Judgment incorporating the findings and legal conclusions from the March 2022 Summary Judgment Order. The Court also reaffirmed its prior approval of the three settlements addressing the claims of the "psychotropic medications," "legal representation," and "disability" classes.

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