Jenny Lisette Flores Fled Violence in El Salvador and Changed US Law to Protect Migrant Children Now the Agreement That Bears Her Name Is at Risk Again

The filing came quietly, buried under the weight of legal language, but the intent was clear. On Thursday, the administration submitted a motion to terminate one of the only legal shields in place for migrant children in federal custody. Known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, the policy has stood since the 1990s as a safeguard to ensure that children arriving at the border are not kept in federal detention for extended periods and are treated with a minimum standard of care. Now, the very existence of that agreement is being challenged once again, reigniting a legal battle that defenders of migrant rights have fought before.

According to AP News, the Flores Settlement Agreement limits Border Patrol’s ability to detain children for longer than 72 hours and requires that those children, whether unaccompanied or arriving with family, are kept in sanitary and safe conditions. It exists not out of bureaucratic benevolence but because a Latina girl named Jenny Lisette Flores took the United States government to court in the 1980s. Her case documented what lawyers described as widespread mistreatment of children in immigration detention and forced the country into a long-overdue reckoning with its policies toward minors in custody.

Jenny Lisette Flores Is the Reason the Flores Agreement Exists — Who Was She?

Jenny was fifteen when she fled the civil war in El Salvador in 1985 as reported by Univision. She crossed borders alone in the hope of reuniting with her aunt in the United States. What followed was not sanctuary. U.S. Border Patrol agents, then under the Immigration and Naturalization Service, arrested her shortly after she arrived. Rather than being allowed to live with her relative while her immigration case played out, Jenny was sent to a detention facility where she endured treatment rarely spoken of by officials at the time.

Records from the case recount how she was handcuffed, strip-searched, and held in conditions described as unfit for any minor. The Department of Justice refused to release her to her aunt, claiming she was an unrelated adult despite their family bond. The policy at the time allowed children to be held indefinitely in secure facilities without access to a guardian or adequate legal protection.

Her experience might have been swallowed by the system if not for the intervention of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. That same year, the organization filed a class-action lawsuit to stop the government from holding immigrant children in prolonged detention and denying them the rights they would otherwise have outside the context of immigration enforcement. The suit also challenged the premise that immigration violations— particularly in the case of minors — should be treated through a system that mimics criminal incarceration when the infraction is civil, not criminal.

A Legal Safeguard Born from Abuse

The legacy of Jenny Lisette Flores reaches into every corner of federal border enforcement. The original lawsuit sparked the creation of strict requirements for the treatment of migrant children and gave judges the authority to enforce them. Under the current structure, Border Patrol must transfer children to shelters operated by the Department of Health and Human Services after those initial 72 hours, unless extraordinary delays cause bottlenecks in the system. These shelters are supposed to offer food, hygiene, education, and medical care. The language of the Flores Agreement is blunt in its expectations but has always depended on close monitoring and compliance.

This is not the first time the government has tried to dismantle it. In August 2019, the federal administration sought to dissolve the agreement, only to be blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2020. That ruling kept the core of Flores intact, preserving judicial oversight and limiting prolonged detention of minors in federal custody. Since then, changes have reshaped how the agreement is enforced. Under the current administration, the Department of Health and Human Services no longer falls under its monitoring structure, citing the introduction of new internal guidelines. Still, the Department of Homeland Security remains bound to its rules, which continue to apply to Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection officers — the first to encounter children after they cross into the United States.

Federal Custody Still Fails to Protect

Even with the agreement in place, violations persist. In Texas, nearly 300 children had to be evacuated from a Border Patrol facility following reports that they had been denied adequate food, water, and sanitation. The agreement provides a framework, but not a guarantee. Its enforcement relies heavily on monitors appointed by the court, who submit their findings to Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California. Their inspections have become one of the last reliable checks on how children are treated once they are in custody.

Border enforcement officials were expected to resume internal monitoring under their own authority. That effort was postponed in January when a federal judge ruled that they were not prepared to do so. The court extended the use of court-appointed monitors for another eighteen months, which showcases reality that institutional oversight is still lacking.

A Policy Under Siege Again

This latest motion to terminate Flores is a clear signal of how vulnerable protections for migrant children remain. No public statements were issued by the administration. The filing itself did not offer new evidence or improved conditions to justify ending the agreement. It simply argued, again, that the framework should no longer apply.

The future of the Flores Settlement Agreement now lies in the hands of the courts, where defenders will likely challenge the motion. For the thousands of children who continue to arrive at the southern border, it remains one of the few assurances that someone, somewhere, is watching how they are treated. The legal structure created in response to one Salvadoran girl’s ordeal may yet survive another attempt to erase it from federal policy. But its survival should not depend on resistance alone.