Judge Appoints a Special Master and an Outside Monitor Over Detained Immigrant Children, Citing a 'History of Noncompliance'

Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California appointed two outside overseers on Monday to track how long the government detains immigrant children, finding the federal government likely violated the 1997 Flores settlement, which limits such detention to 30 days. She named former U.S. Attorney Andrea Sheridan Ordin as special master and Stanford pediatrician Paul H. Wise as independent monitor. They will track custody length in the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso and San Diego Border Patrol sectors and at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, along with facility temperatures, sleeping conditions, access to soap, and the adequacy of medical care at Dilley.

Court-appointed monitoring is a remedy reserved for situations where a court concludes that ordinary compliance reporting has not worked, and it puts an outside professional inside the detention system with a reporting line to the judge.

Gee ordered quarterly reports and required the monitors to notify ICE and CBP of Flores failures. The monitors cannot issue orders or impose sanctions but may recommend that the court do so. Gee noted detainees at Dilley filed 64 grievances about medical services between August 2025 and May 2026.