Trump wants to prosecute all illegal border crossings without splitting up families. That will be a challenge.

if they are with their parents. Detaining immigrant families through their criminal proceedings, their civil deportation processes and the process of adjudicating their asylum cases would almost certainly take longer than that.

The government admitted as much Thursday in a filing submitted at the president’s behest to the federal court in California with the power to relax those restrictions.

“Under current law and legal rulings, including this Court’s, it is not possible for the U.S. government to detain families together during the pendency of their immigration proceedings,” lawyers for the Department of Justice wrote. “It cannot be done.”

For that reason, the government argued it needs the court to modify the settlement in several major ways to accommodate “significant changes” in immigration circumstances — namely “the ongoing, worsening influx of family units on the Southwest border.” Experts expressed doubt that the court will heed the government’s request.

It’s not clear whether the government will wait for a resolution from that court — likely to take weeks or months — or just go ahead with its plans, facing the legal ramifications later.

“They’re aware of the legal repercussions because they filed the papers today. They’ve already filed the plea,” said Barbara Hines, the former director of the University of Texas’ law school’s immigration clinic. “I think at this point they are proceeding through the appropriate channels, which is trying to get the settlement modified. I don’t think they’ll be successful.”

Going ahead without court permission would be “outrageous,” Hines said.

Finding space for families
The administration faces challenges beyond the law.

“Even if there was no 20-day restriction, they would still face the constraint of not having very much capacity,” Greenberg said.

Between October and May, more than 59,000 people traveling with family members were apprehended along the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As the flow of migrants continues, the government will likely have to find a place to house all those families.

“Expanding family detention is not going to give Trump what he wants,” said Kevin Landy, who directed the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Detention Policy and Planning under the Obama administration. “DHS will not be able to detain and remove