Attorneys say the government is still giving migrant kids psychotropic drugs without parental consent

A shelter for migrant children in Texas.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Despite a federal judge ordering in July that the U.S. government stop giving undocumented children in migrant shelters psychotropic medications, the practice is continuing, civil rights attorneys said in a court filing on Friday.

Attorneys from the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law said that children at the Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Texas and other migrant shelters run by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement say they are still being administered "psychotropic drugs without informed parental consent or court order." The government is "almost certainly not complying" with a California federal judge's July 30 order, the lawyers said, offering written statements from four children and one child's aunt about the medication they are being given inside Shiloh.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.