Immigrant advocates say the federal government is allowing migrant children at a Florida facility to languish in "prison-like conditions" instead of releasing them promptly to family.

Attorneys filed hundreds of pages in federal court in Los Angeles Friday asking a judge to make the U.S. government honor a decades-old settlement agreement governing the care of detained immigrant children.

Advocates said children who are held at the Homestead, Florida facility after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to sponsors or licensed facilities within 20 days.

In court filings, teens said they longed to be released and complained they were given the same food daily, limited phone calls and told to heed the rules or it could prolong their detention or get them deported.