LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles federal judge heard arguments Friday but made no ruling in a bid by the government to partially end court oversight of standards for the safe detention of immigrant children.

Since 1997, the so-called Flores settlement agreement — overseen by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee — has set basic standards of care for the custody, care and release of all children in federal immigration custody, including unaccompanied immigrant children.

The government is now arguing that the Flores agreement is no longer needed as to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services because new regulations finalized in April implement past protections and additional safeguards for immigrant children in Office of Refugee Resettlement care.

The new rule could go into effect July 1, depending on court approval.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 1985 challenging the conditions in which immigrant minors were detained and the failure to release them promptly to relatives living in the U.S. After numerous appeals, the case was settled in 1997 in what became known as the Flores settlement, named after Jenny Lisette Flores, an unaccompanied  teenager who arrived from El Salvador and was apprehended by the Immigration and Naturalization Service after illegally attempting to cross the Mexico-United States border in 1985.

The Trump administration sought to end the settlement but was denied by Gee and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The hearings in Los Angeles federal court over the years have frequently dealt with conditions at outdoor camps in Florida and Texas, where the vast majority of accompanied and unaccompanied minors are detained.