A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to release from detention centers immigrant children and their mothers caught entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico.
In a filing late Friday, California U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee rejected the government's request that she reconsider her ruling and ordered it to implement remedies by Oct. 23, 2015, saying that the children and their mothers must be released without unnecessary delay.
Two centers in Texas and one in Pennsylvania held some 1,400 people recently, mostly Central Americans seeking asylum after fleeing violence at home.
The government had fought the judge's ruling, saying that the facilities had been turned into short-term processing centers.
But Gee says in her order that the government remains in violation of a longstanding legal agreement that bans immigrant children from being held in secure unlicensed facilities.
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