Seven years ago, a group of formerly detained immigrant mothers, an Austin-based nonprofit, and a daycare owner teamed up to fight Texas’ handling of federal family detention policy. After a long series of judicial victories and defeats, they secured a rare and belated victory last month in the state’s highest court.
In a little-noticed ruling on June 17, the GOP-controlled Texas Supreme Court decreed that the formerly detained mothers have “standing,” or the right, to sue the state over the duration and conditions of their prior incarceration with their children in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in South Texas. This opinion reversed a 2018 decision by the Texas Third District Court of Appeals. The mothers, who are among the suit’s plaintiffs, got out of detention years ago—and, under Biden, immigrant families are not currently being detained in Texas. But the Supreme Court decision bolsters the rights of formerly detained people to sue for harm caused during their detention, and—depending on the lower court decisions to come—could help settle a years-long debate over whether detention facilities can be childcare centers.
“[The state Supreme Court decision] sets a good precedent, that the detained or formerly detained people have standing to bring claims about harm that these kinds of regulations cause,” said Bob Libal, former executive director of Grassroots Leadership, a nonprofit dedicated to prison and detention center abolition. The case will now return to the lower appeals court, which will review the underlying question of whether the state can license prison-like ICE facilities as daycares.
