Seventeen States Sue Trump Administration Over Family Separations

By Josh Gerstein, Politico

27 June 18

 

coalition of 17 states filed suit Tuesday over President Donald Trump's family separation policy, arguing that it unconstitutionally infringes on parents' rights and is motivated by "animus" toward Latinos.

Blasting Trump's policy as "abhorrent and indefensible," the lawsuit argues that the administration's move to separate more than 2,000 immigrant children from their parents has harmed the interests of the states' residents and interferes with the states' ability to protect children from abuse.

The suit is led by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who painted it as part of a broader campaign to resist Trump administration initiatives.

"This case, like all our cases against this Administration, says something important about who we are as a people,” Ferguson said. “We will stand up for the Constitution, basic decency and fundamental American values."

It's unclear how pivotal the state-led litigation will be in challenging Trump's family separation policy, which he purported to reverse in an executive order last week as outrage built over the growing number of border-crossing families being split up as adults were taken to court for criminal prosecution.

The American Civil Liberties Union has already moved to use a pre-existing lawsuit to get a judge to force reunification of children separated from their families. Other cases brought on behalf of individual parents are pending. And Trump has acknowledged that to implement his plan to shift to family detention, a federal court will have to modify a longstanding consent decree to permit children to be held for more than 20 days.

The 128-page lawsuit the states filed Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Seattle contends that Trump's policy violates Fifth Amendment guarantees of due process and equal protection, federal asylum laws and a federal statute called the Administrative Procedure Act.

"The Policy, and the Trump Administration’s subsequent attempt to shield their facilities from state licensing standards, is an affront to States’ sovereign interests in enforcing their laws governing minimum standards of care for children, declaring the family unit to be a fundamental resource of American life that should be nurtured, and requiring the preservation of the parent-child relationship unless the child’s right to basic nurture, health, or safety is jeopardized," the suit says.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the suit.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo got ahead of the attorneys general and said on CNN shortly before 2 p.m. that the suit would be filed today. The Democratic governor suggested last week that the Empire State would file its own suit, showing how members of his party have pounced on the issue. Instead, the state ended up as one of 17 joining in the Washington-led case.

“Our position is it violates the constitution, it violates due process, it violates equal protection,” Cuomo said on CNN. “One of the fundamental due process rights is the care, custody and control of their children.”

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, another frequent thorn in the side of the Trump administration, said the states were compelled to act because the health and safety of children is at risk.

"Child internment camps in America...the Trump Administration has hit a new low. President Trump’s indifference towards the human rights of the children and parents who have been ripped away from one another is chilling," Becerra said in a statement. "Today we are taking the Trump Administration to court because the safety, security and well-being of our children is too important to be threatened by a heartless political maneuver. "

In addition to Washington, New York, and California, the new suit is backed by Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, North Carolina, Delaware and the District of Columbia.