Suit challenges new rules on children in federal custody who crossed into US
Two advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit Thursday asking the courts to halt new Trump Administration vetting procedures for reuniting children who crossed into the U.S. without their parents, saying the changes are keeping families separated longer and are inhumane.
The lawsuit was filed by the National Center for Youth Law and Democracy Forward in federal court in the District of Columbia. It names the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its Office of Refugee Resettlement and seeks a return to prior reunification procedures.
Critics note the government data shows the average time that the children are held in custody before release by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to their sponsors grew from 37 days in January to over 112 days by March.
In February, the Trump administration changed the way it reviews sponsors who want to care for migrant children in government custody, whether parents or relatives of the minors -- or others. More changes followed in March and April when the government started to require identification or proof of income that only those legally present in the U.S. could acquire. Advocates for the families affected are asking a judge to declare the changes unlawful and return the agency to the policies in place before that.
'The government has dramatically increased the burden on families in a way that deeply undermines children's safety. These policy changes are part of a broader unraveling of a bi-partisan, decades-long commitment to support the best interests of unaccompanied children,' said Neha Desai, a managing director at National Center for Youth Law.
Attorneys said they had heard from families who were moments away from receiving their children back when the rules were abruptly changed. Now, many say they are left waiting indefinitely.
'The administration has reversed years of established children's welfare protections and replaced them with fear, prolonged detention, and bureaucratic cruelty,' said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward in a statement.
One Mexican woman who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of fears of deportation said she and her 8-year-old son were led to believe repeatedly that they would be reunited, only to find out the new policy changes would derail their plans.
The mother, who arrived first across the border from Mexico, has noticed her son lose hope over the last 11 months, even refusing to unpack after the last time he thought his release from a government-run shelter was imminent.
'He's seen so many children who have come, leave, and he's stayed behind," said the mother, who wasn't part of the lawsuit.
The Trump administration says it is increasing scrutiny of parents and other sponsors before giving them custody of their children who have crossed the border as unaccompanied minors.
HHS did not immediately respond to emails from AP seeking comment in response to the lawsuit filed Thursday afternoon.
Similar restrictions were imposed in 2018 under Trump's first presidency during the rollout of a zero-tolerance policy that separated families and required fingerprinting for all members of a household receiving a child. The administration scaled back the requirements after custody times increased.
____
This story has been updated to correct that the Department of Homeland Security was not named in the lawsuit as previously stated.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
23 minutes ago
- Fox News
Analyzing fallout from American Eagle's Sydney Sweeney ad campaign
Fox News contributor Katrina Campins, Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell and comedian Danny Polishchuk join 'Fox News Saturday Night' to discuss.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
In draft congressional map, Texas Republicans bet big that gains with Latino voters will persist
WASHINGTON — In the 2024 election, Hispanic voters fled their traditional Democratic Party roots, casting their ballots for Republican Donald Trump at historic rates in areas long seen as Democratic strongholds, like South Texas. With their plan to flip five blue seats under a new congressional map introduced in the Legislature last week, Texas Republicans are betting Latino voters will stick with them in 2026. In three of the districts Republicans hope to capture — the 9th Congressional District in east Houston, the 35th District southeast of San Antonio and Rep. Henry Cuellar's 28th District in South Texas — the GOP map-drawers crafted new boundaries that make each seat more favorable for Republicans while also adding more Hispanic voters to the district. These three districts would be majority Hispanic, as would the seat held by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, whose South Texas seat Republicans are also gunning for. If the districts were in place during the 2024 election, Trump would have carried each by at least 10 percentage points, according to a Texas Tribune analysis. Such margins depended, in large part, on Hispanic-majority counties whose voters have been moving rightward since 2016. And in 2024, when the vast majority of U.S. counties shifted right, predominantly Hispanic counties saw even more pronounced movement. Trump carried all four counties in the Rio Grande Valley after failing to crack 30% in the region during his first presidential bid, and he won 14 of the 18 Texas counties within 20 miles of the border. But Trump's coattails extended only so far down the ballot, with Democrats winning numerous local races in the same counties that recorded eye-popping shifts at the top of the ticket. Cuellar and Gonzalez secured reelection even as Trump carried their districts, and even with Cuellar also facing down an indictment for alleged money laundering and bribery. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, appearing just below Trump on November ballots, ran well behind his party's nominee in a number of South Texas locales, especially those with larger Latino populations. If the new lines proposed for Cuellar's district had been in place, the 28th District would have gone for Trump by 10 points, while Cruz would have eked out a narrow 0.1% win. Without Trump at the top of the ticket in 2026 and three of the five target districts increasing their share of Hispanic voters, the GOP map-drawers are making what could amount to a risky bet that enough Latino voters will turn out again to support GOP candidates across the ballot. Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who has worked in Texas politics for decades and hosts a podcast about Latino voters, believes Trump has a unique appeal to Hispanic voters that doesn't necessarily trickle down to other Republican candidates. Especially potent was Trump's assertion that the economic system was rigged against Americans and he would be the one to fix it, Rocha said. That sort of messaging transcends partisan affiliation, Rocha said, arguing that Trump in 2024 and progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2020 each overperformed in the Rio Grande Valley and with Latino voters 'because their messages aligned around a rigged system, around failed trade policies and reinvigorating economic populism.' 'The newest swingy electorate in Texas' Trump's freewheeling lack of political correctness also led some Hispanic voters to associate him with 'machismo,' Gilberto Hinojosa, the former Texas Democratic Party chair and Cameron County judge, said. 'In some parts of our community, they could relate to that.' Campaign operatives from both parties pinpointed two issues that drove Latino voters to the right last November: immigration and the economy. During the campaign, those operatives told the Tribune, President Joe Biden and Democrats struggled to convince voters they were doing enough to secure the southern border, while inflation hit the electorate's pocketbooks and proved an especially damaging issue for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris among Hispanic voters. 'Four years of open borders and 12 million illegal immigrants coming into this country did real damage across Texas, but in the Hispanic community in particular,' Cruz told The Texas Tribune last week. 'I think that was a big part of the reason why both President Trump and I won Hispanics statewide, and why the two of us flipped the Rio Grande Valley.' But Rocha doesn't think this means Trump and other Republicans are sure to hold onto those gains with Latino voters, who he labeled 'the newest swingy electorate in Texas.' Trump's approval rating is underwater among Hispanic voters. A July national poll by Equis Research found that one-third of Hispanic voters who backed Biden in 2020 then Trump in 2024 are planning to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate. Another one-third of these voters are undecided. Democrats are gearing up to court Latino voters in next year's midterms by homing in on the economy, already deploying messaging that highlights Trump's tariff strategy — which many economists have said will worsen inflation — to paint Republicans as unconcerned with the day-to-day lives of Americans. 'Throughout this cycle Democrats will be laser focused on making sure Latino voters know the harm that has come from the Republican trifecta and highlighting how Republicans broke their promise to lower costs and instead gave billionaires a tax cut at their communities' expense,' said Madison Andrus, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Democrats' campaign arm. Republicans largely believe they can outflank Democrats by simply reminding voters of the record-high inflation under Biden's presidency. Prices for some common goods have fallen since Trump returned to the White House, a fact that GOP operative Wayne Hamilton sees as a bulwark against a Democratic resurgence among Latinos. 'Long term, that's good for South Texas,' said Hamilton, who leads a group, Project Red TX, that focuses on recruiting and supporting Republican candidates in South Texas. 'That's good for the border. That's good for America.' Jobs are also likely to be central to any messaging to Latino voters. In South Texas, many Hispanic voters work in the fracking industry — a sector some Democrats want to phase out in favor of clean energy alternatives. That plan, Hinojosa said, is viewed by Latinos as an existential threat to their jobs and way of life, despite the employment opportunities also generated by renewable energy. 'What's important to Hispanics in South Texas is quality jobs that provide good wages and working conditions and benefits,' Hinojosa said. Rocha agreed, arguing that Democrats should run ads centered on the 'sanctity of work.' On the other side of the aisle, Republicans are looking to do the same. To win Hispanic voters, Cruz said Republicans need to 'remain the party of jobs,' calling it his 'No. 1 priority in the Senate.' The National Republican Campaign Committee is also recruiting Latino candidates to run in districts that could tilt in their favor if new Texas maps are approved. Gonzalez has drawn a challenge from Eric Flores, a Republican Army veteran and lawyer from Mission, while Cuellar may face Democrat-turned-Republican Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, who is mulling a race. 'Hispanic communities in South Texas are sick and tired of out of touch Democrats Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez turning their backs on them time and again,' NRCC spokesperson Zach Bannon said in a statement. Mayra Flores, a Republican who briefly represented the 34th District after winning a 2022 special election for part of 2022, has already announced a bid against Cuellar. The lineup for The Texas Tribune Festival continues to grow! Be there when all-star leaders, innovators and newsmakers take the stage in downtown Austin, Nov. 13–15. The newest additions include comedian, actor and writer John Mulaney; Dallas mayor Eric Johnson; U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota; New York Media Editor-at-Large Kara Swisher; and U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso. Get your tickets today! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
4 Types of Workers Could Save Big Under Trump's Overtime Tax Break
President Donald Trump's signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) includes a provision that allows employees who work more than 40 hours per week to deduct a portion of their overtime pay from their taxable income. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) guarantees pay of at least 1.5 times a worker's regular wages for every hour worked over 40 in a given seven-day period. Traditionally, time-and-a-half pay has been subject to federal income taxes, including those that fund Medicare and Social Security. However, from 2025 through 2028, eligible taxpayers can deduct up to $12,500 in overtime pay, or $25,000 for joint filers, without itemizing, provided they earn less than $150,000, at which point the deduction begins to phase out. However, the FLSA and its numerous subsequent updates have carved out exceptions for executives, administrative and professional employees, those in certain computer and sales occupations and others who are exempt from overtime pay protection. Therefore, many Americans won't benefit from the new rule. This article profiles those who likely will. Check Out: Read Next: Nurses According to the Lore Law Firm, at least 18 states have laws regulating mandatory overtime for nurses. In much of the country, however, these crucial healthcare workers are often required to work more than 40 hours per week, whether they want to or not, to compensate for persistent staffing shortages. As early as 2004, the CDC was reporting on the heavy toll that mandatory overtime was taking on nurses and their patients, citing fatigue, burnout, diminished work performance and increased error rates due to long hours of stressful work. Roughly 20 years later, ShiftMed reported that little had changed. The OBBBA stands to give millions of nonexempt nurses a break — on their taxes, at least, if not at their workplaces. See More: Law Enforcement Like nurses, law enforcement officers play a crucial role in society that often requires them to work overtime. Also like nurses, many seek extra hours voluntarily, but often don't have a choice. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook page for police and detectives, 'Paid overtime is common, and shift work is necessary to protect the public at all times.' Tradespeople Overtime is common in many trades occupations. Like police officers and nurses, the nature of their work often makes extra hours an unavoidable part of the job. The following are some of the many circumstances that can keep them working beyond 40 hours per week. Emergency repairs Installations with tight deadlines Frequent calls after regular business hours Spikes in demand during extreme weather events The tradespeople most likely to work overtime — and therefore benefit from the new OBBBA provisions — are: Welders Plumbers Electricians Construction workers HVAC techs Manufacturing Employees According to the BLS, the average manufacturing employee works between 3.6 and 3.7 hours of overtime per week, or roughly 14.6 hours of time-and-a-half pay per month. That's nearly 190 overtime hours per year — much of which will now be tax-deductible. In fact, reliance on overtime is so common in the sector that the industrial staffing firm Traba wrote a report with striking similarities to the ShiftMed report on the nursing crisis. Chronic understaffing as high as 34% in some industries forces manufacturing companies to pay staggering levels of overtime compensation, with some employees racking up 500 overtime hours per year or more. Similarly to nursing, the result is often burnout, diminished performance and preventable accidents, often to the most seasoned and reliable employees. More From GOBankingRates 5 Cities You Need To Consider If You're Retiring in 2025 This article originally appeared on 4 Types of Workers Could Save Big Under Trump's Overtime Tax Break Sign in to access your portfolio
