In 1997, the United States District Court for the Central District of California approved the Flores Settlement Agreement (“the Settlement”), which establishes a nationwide policy for the detention, release, and treatment of minors in immigration detention. The Settlement requires that children be held in safe and sanitary conditions, placed in state-licensed facilities or their equivalent, and released without unnecessary delay when detention is not required.

The Trump administration now seeks to terminate the Settlement, arguing that “changed circumstances” render continued enforcement inequitable. In particular, the administration points to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB Act), enacted in July 2025 through budget reconciliation. The OBBB Act appropriates $45 billion for detention capacity, including family detention in Family Residential Centers (FRC). The administration claims this appropriation reflects congressional approval of a policy shift favoring the detention of immigrant families and children. The district court correctly rejected the administration’s argument, and the administration appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

In January 2026, the Constitutional Accountability Center filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit on behalf of Members of Congress, opposing termination of the Flores Settlement. Our brief explains that a budget reconciliation bill cannot be read to silently displace the Settlement’s protections.

First, budget reconciliation is an expedited procedure for enacting legislation that primarily affects federal spending and revenues. Because reconciliation bills bypass the Senate’s normal 60-vote requirement, the process is subject to important constraints designed to prevent abuse. The most significant is the Byrd Rule, which prohibits the inclusion of “extraneous” matter in reconciliation legislation—including substantive policy changes that dwarf their budgetary impact. The Senate is careful to enforce the Byrd Rule to ensure it remains a meaningful constraint on the reconciliation process.

Second, the administration’s reliance on the OBBB Act rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what reconciliation can accomplish. The OBBB Act’s detention provisions survived reconciliation precisely because they are appropriations—money for detention capacity—not changes to the legal standards governing detention. A provision terminating the Settlement would be a major substantive policy change that could not have survived the reconciliation process. Accordingly, the OBBB Act cannot constitute a “changed circumstance” warranting termination of the Settlement.

Because the OBBB Act did not—and indeed, could not—signal a policy shift toward family detention, the Ninth Circuit should affirm the district court’s decision refusing to terminate the Settlement.