The Trump administration has changed a fingerprint-based background check policy for immigrant household members, which had sparked a national putative class action claiming the policy created the highest level in history of migrant children being held in government custody away from their parents.

The policy change makes it less onerous on many of those seeking to sponsor the migrant children and bring them back into the custody of parents or others close to the family, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, one of the legal groups behind the putative class action, is calling the change “a major reversal.”

The policy originally was instituted in June. The change will reportedly mean that hundreds of migrant children will be released from government-contracted shelters across the country.

The NYCLU noted in a statement Tuesday that the previous June-instituted fingerprint policy, which had required the fingerprinting of all household members of anyone, including a parent, seeking to sponsor a migrant child, had caused huge processing delays that contributed to the total number of migrant children in government custody ballooning to nearly 15,000.

It is unclear whether the national putative class action launched on behalf of detained migrant children, brought by the NYCLU in conjunction with Morrison & Foerster and the National Center for Youth Law, caused or contributed to the the Trump administration's revised fingerprint-check policy.

The policy change was made by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is the agency responsible for immigrant children in government custody and is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In a statement Tuesday, an HHS representative said that “given the robust processes in place for evaluating sponsors, ORR has determined that at this time it is in the best interest of the UAC to issue an operational directive modifying the requirement of household members to be fingerprinted.”

The representative also said that “our focus is always on the safety and best interest of each child, and added that “these are vulnerable children in difficult circumstances, and HHS treats its responsibility for each child with the utmost care.”

NYCLU spokeswoman Naomi Dann offered a different take, saying on Wednesday that “the Trump administration is definitely under serious pressure, both from our lawsuit, and from elected officials and by the capacity limits of the system.”

Dann added that “they have been under pressure from the providers which house the children, which are stretched to capacity as the release backlogs grow the number of children in custody.”

The change by ORR means that parents seeking to sponsor a migrant child held by the government must still be fingerprinted, but not all those living in a household with the parent.

The more stringent policy implemented in June had made it a new requirement that all household members also be fingerprint checked, which had led to large delays and, according to the NYCLU, that in turn led to an increased chance of deportation for the children, most of whom, the organization says, have attempted to cross the U.S. border on their own or were with parents as they crossed, and then were separated from their parents.

NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement Tuesday that “the [June] changes to the fingerprint policy created massive and unnecessary backlogs for the release of detained migrant children, adding weeks and months while their family members waded through bureaucratic delays.“

She added that revisions announced this week “should help speed up the process to reunite children with their families and protect family members from the risk of deportation.”

In early November, the NYCLU and its partners filed a 23-page suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit named as plaintiffs six migrant children in custody who had allegedly been waiting between two weeks and nearly four months for the results of their sponsors' fingerprint background checks.

The complaint contended that the Trump administration's fingerprinting requirements violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a federal statute that requires the prompt release of children from immigration detention.

Moreover, the suit alleged, the requirements also violated constitutional-based due process rights of the children and their parents, the federal Administrative Procedure Act and a 1997 consent decree governing the care of unaccompanied immigrant children known as the “Flores Settlement.”

ORR began requiring fingerprint checks of children's parents and all of their household soon after adopting new policies to share fingerprints with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for enforcement purposes, the lawsuit and a November NYCLU news release said.

Before ORR's June policy, only nonparent relatives and nonrelatives seeking to sponsor children in ORR custody were required to submit fingerprints for background checks. Household members didn't need to be fingerprinted unless there was a special concern for the child's safety, the lawsuit and the November news release said.

The NYCLU charged that, because more than 40 percent of children in ORR custody are released to a parent, the changes have “hugely increased” the number of people who have to be fingerprinted, but ORR has not taken the steps needed to ensure that fingerprinting can occur in a timely fashion.

The suit sought to represent a class of more than 1,000 children in custody whose release is contingent on the fingerprint-based background check of their sponsor or the sponsor's household members.