SAN ANTONIO (AP) —
    The U.S. government has asked a federal judge to reconsider her ruling calling for the immediate release of children and their mothers caught entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico, saying recent changes mean federal authorities are no longer violating a ban on holding immigrant children in secure facilities.
    In late July, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the release of all children from immigrant family detention centers "without unnecessary delay," along with any mothers not deemed a flight or national security risk.
    Justice Department lawyers late Thursday filed documents at the California Central District Court urging Gee to not implement her decision, saying the Department of Homeland Security intends to turn the centers into short-term processing facilities and that her order "addressed practices and policies that no longer exist."
    The government says detention time has been reduced to only a few weeks for most families, and that reducing it further would hinder processing asylum claims and could force the separation of mothers from their children in the event of another wave of migration.
    Moreover, further limits on detention "would heighten the risk of another surge in illegal migration," the filing said, "by incentivizing adults to bring children with them on their dangerous journey as a means to avoid detention and gain access to the interior of the United States."