Detained Immigrant Minors' Human Right to Education: Precariously Protected by Settling for the Flores Agreement

• In Event: 61.068 - MTCC Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: 61.068-3 - Analyzing and Critiquing Inter- and Intra-Immigration Policy Issues

Abstract

The U.S. operates the world’s largest immigration detention system and due to recent policy changes, numbers of detained families and children are increasing. Education is a basic human right and the U.S. is bound by international human rights law and domestic law to provide detained immigrant minors humane conditions and education. This paper employs a collective case study guided by a human rights framework to explore whether U.S. domestic law and government compliance with the law uphold educational rights of detained immigrant youth – directly (i.e., providing educational services) and indirectly (i.e., humane conditions). Findings indicate the U.S. has not adequately codified human rights commitments into domestic law and consistently violates the sole legal protection of detained immigrant minors’ educational rights.

Authors

• Chelsea Connery, University of Connecticut - Storrs

• Preston C. Green, University of Connecticut