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The Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled a rule that allows officials to detain migrant families indefinitely while judges consider whether to grant them asylum in the United States, abolishing a previous 20-day limit. The rule, which is certain to draw a legal challenge, would replace a 1997 court settlement that limits the amount of time U.S. immigration authorities can detain migrant children. That agreement is generally interpreted as meaning families must be released within 20 days. (Sullivan and Rosenberg, 8/21)

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services will issue a rule Friday to withdraw from the Flores Settlement Agreement, the federal consent decree that has set basic standards for the detention of migrant children and teenagers by the United States since 1997. The new rule will need the approval of a federal judge, who declined the government’s request last year to expand detentions. Homeland Security officials said the rule would eliminate a 20-day cap for detaining migrant children and create a new license regime that would make it easier for federal officials to expand family detention nationwide. (Sacchetti, 8/21)

For more than a year, the White House has pressed the Department of Homeland Security to find a way to eliminate the agreement, known as the Flores settlement, which limits the time children can spend in detention and establishes minimum standards for the holding facilities for families and children. Immigration hard-liners inside the administration say the move is crucial to halting the flow of migrants across the southwestern border. The administration’s goal with the new rule is deterrence, and its message to families fleeing Central American is blunt: Come here and we will lock you up. Critics say it is the latest in a series of policies by President Trump meant to close off the United States from the rest of the world. (Shear and Kanno-Youngs, 8/21)

The (Flores) settlement also required immigration officials to give detained minors a certain quality of life, including things such as food, drinking water, medical assistance in emergencies, toilets, sinks, temperature control, supervision and as much separation from unrelated adults as possible, according to a Congressional Research Service report. During the 1980s, the former government agency Immigration and Naturalization Service was accused of mistreating immigrant children, according to the Congressional Research Service report, resulting in a series of lawsuits that ended with the Flores settlement agreement. (Stracqualursi, Sands, Elkin and Rocha, 8/21)

In describing the new system, the Trump administration Wednesday said the Flores agreement was always supposed to be temporary. "Beginning in 2005, prior administrations repeatedly announced plans for a rule," DHS said in its announcement of the rule. "No prior administration, however, issued a final rule. With this achievement now complete, the (Flores agreement) will terminate by its own terms, and the Trump administration will continue to work for a better immigration system." (Luthi, 8/21)

Immigration-rights advocates are expected to challenge the rules in federal court, where they have blocked the administration before. A legal challenge would likely keep the policy from taking immediate effect. (Hackman, 8/21)

NPR's Audie Cornish speaks with Wendy Young, president of the child advocacy organization KIND, about President Trump's moves to change requirements for the detention of migrant children. (8/21)

Questioned about the new policy, which is sure to be challenged in court, Mr. Trump continued his pattern of blaming “loopholes,” nonexistent laws and former presidents for his own administration’s practice of separating migrant families who cross illegally. President Barack Obama, in particular, has been wrongly cast as the instigator of the practice by Mr. Trump at least two dozen other times. Under Mr. Trump, the Justice Department announced its “zero-tolerance policy” for illegally entering the United States in April 2018, describing it as “new” and in response to an increase in unauthorized border crossings that spring. (Qiu, 8/21)