As the second Trump administration ramps up its anti-immigrant crackdown, a Los Angeles federal judge is about to decide whether to extend federal protections that ensure migrant children detained at the U.S.-Mexico border receive a higher standard of care — provisions set to expire on Wednesday.
It’s a pivotal moment that could set the stage for many of the legal fights to come over border officials’ treatment of migrant families, particularly when President Donald Trump has already sent 500 Marines to San Diego as a show of force and handed “border czar” responsibilities to Tom Homan — the official who oversaw the “zero tolerance” policy that led to thousands of family separations during the first Trump administration.
The potential turning point also comes just days after Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report documenting what they called “inadequate care in Customs and Border Protection facilities,” which closely examined the errors and dismissive attitudes of officials that led to the death of Anadith Danay Reyes Álvarez, an 8-year-old Panamanian girl detained at a CBP detention facility in Harlingen, Texas, in 2023. Congressional investigators found that, in some cases, contracted medical personnel “do not always feel empowered to seek emergency services without approval by nonmedical CBP personnel.”