Attorneys for unaccompanied immigrant children are asking a federal judge to require the government to get a court order or parental permission before administering psychotropic medication, citing concerns that youths were forcibly drugged at a residential treatment center near Houston, newly filed court records show.

The motion, filed in the 20-year-old landmark Flores class action lawsuit that governs the treatment of children in U.S. immigration custody, includes testimony from children detained at Shiloh Treatment Center in Manvel and their parents. The motion also cites a 2014 Houston Chronicle investigation that documented Shiloh’s long and troubled history, including allegations of forced medication and physical abuse.

“[T]hey are requiring [my daughter] to take very powerful medications for anxiety,” one mother wrote in a declaration filed in California federal court. “I have noted that [she] is becoming more nervous, fearful, and she trembles. [She] tells me that she has fallen several times . . . because the medications were too powerful and she couldn’t walk.”

A girl who reported being gang raped in El Salvador when she was 15 and fled to the U.S. said in a written declaration that “I think I would get a ‘report’ if I didn’t take my medicine... The staff hold down and inject youth who aren’t able to calm down.”

No one immediately responded to a voicemail left with Shiloh on Thursday. The shelter, which typically cares for children who are struggling with mental and emotional issues, is licensed by the state to hold up to 44 children ages 3 to 17.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, which is responsible for the care of unaccompanied children, did not respond to a voicemail or email on Thursday afternoon. The agency has been under strain and scrutiny amid the backlash from the Trump administration’s now-rescinded “zero tolerance” policy, which put officials in the position of finding shelter for young children, including toddlers, who were separated from their parents.

The recent motion in court is not directly related to the zero tolerance policy.

The court filings echo problems documented by the Chronicle in 2014. The newspaper reported then that state licensing officials had documented allegations of improper restraints and abuses for years at the center. Doctors had prescribed “emergency” medication — including Thorazine, Zyprexa and Haldol — dozens of times during the span of a year. There was no requirement then that the shelter report to the federal officials each time children were drugged or restrained, the newspaper reported.

After the Chronicle story, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, a senior member of the House Homeland Security and Judiciary committees, called for the closure of Shiloh.

“The abuses documented in that report — ranging from physical violence, unreasonable and excessive use of physical restraints, administering emergency medications without notice to governmental authorities, and several deaths of minor children while in custody — is not reflective of the quality of care and support that should be provided to the at-risk children, including the dozens of unaccompanied immigrant children, committed to its care.”

In January of this year, attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote to the Department of Health and Human Services, ORR’s parent agency, and requested that it stop placing children in Shiloh.

In the motion filed on June 15, attorneys for the children argue that ORR should, at minimum, get parental consent if possible, or that of another adult family member, before administering psychotropic medications.

The judge has yet to rule on that motion.

susan.carroll@chron.com

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