DHS No. 2 Ken Cuccinelli issued an official statement today denouncing U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee as an "activist" and accusing her of "preparing to order the separation" of migrant families in ICE detention.

I want to highlight a few points in a brief thread. 1/

Lawyers for detained migrant minors and the Justice Department filed a draft of a protocol earlier this month explaining that parents in ICE family detention can allow their children to be released to sponsors or continue to be in detention, together but indefinitely. 2/

Gee, who has ordered the government to comply with its binding obligation under the Flores settlement to seek the prompt release of migrant minors from detention, has yet to approve the protocol.

She ordered all parties yesterday to continue working to finalize the protocol. 3/

One of the main issues that still needs to be resolved is that the Trump admin. wants Gee to approve each request from a parent who chooses to have her child released from detention to a sponsor, who can be a family member in the US.

Lawyers for detained minors oppose that. 4/

Cuccinelli says Gee will be ordering family separations.

But he fails to note that ICE has broad discretion to release families together and that his administration was the one which implemented an unprecedented family separation policy designed to deter border crossings. 5/

Gee greenlighted this protocol because minors continue to be held in unlicensed detention facilities for 20 + days, despite Flores.

Cuccinelli says "countless children" may be released—but it is unclear how many parents would allow their kids to be released without them. 6 /

In May, ICE reported to Gee that not a single parent in ICE family detention wanted to be separated from their kids.

"Parent Does Not Wish to Separate," ICE noted in spreadsheets detailing why the agency denied parole to most minors in its custody. end https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-asked-migrant-parents-whether-they-wished-to-be-separated-from-their-children-agency-tells-court/