Detention of undocumented immigrant families has been a controversial law enforcement strategy for decades. Critics of “family detention” say young children are incarcerated. Supporters say lockdown families send a clear message to the consequences of illegal entry into the United States while waiting for deportation.
Now, President Trump is resurrecting family detention after the Biden administration loses its use as his administration moves forward with a commitment to suppressing immigration.
In recent days, families have begun arriving in a southern Texas detention facility, and immigration attorneys are expected to bring more in the coming days. Also in the second detention center in southern Texas is preparing for families.
Each facility is set up for thousands of people. At one location, multiple families were detained in rooms with four to eight bunk beds and shared bathroom facilities.
During the last Trump administration and Obama administration, family detention was used, and some medical services and some educational guidance were provided. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Tricia McLaughlin said the reopening facilities would provide the same services.
Most of these previously detained families are Central Americans who have recently crossed the southern border, and many families are expected to be quickly deported unless they seek asylum and express fear of returning to their homeland.
With the border now at a quiet and illegal crossing point, immigration enforcement has moved to the country to treat the Trump administration’s commitment to mass deportation.
This led to arrests of people who have been working or going to school before their family members are detained. Some of them are tied to the new detention center in Carnes, Texas, and the upcoming reopening detention center in Dilley, Texas, both in southern San Antonio.
Families who illegally enter the U.S. with young children have long posed particularly tricky legal and political challenges to the White House and the federal government as minors receive special protections.
When he first took office in 2017, Mr. Trump moved quickly and actively into the containment crossing, many arriving at home. But after his administration began separating immigrant children from parents, public outcry was so loud that the White House eventually stopped the practice.
Now, back to another term, Mr. Trump and his advisers have made it clear that they plan to make family immigration a key goal and that resumption of detention is an effort to prevent families from seeking to enter the United States.
Thomas D. Homan on the Border Boobs said family detention must be restored. He also noted that the government will go to court to challenge a long-term agreement to limit how long immigrant children can be detained.
When asked if she was personally satisfied with the practice of family detention, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested that families could choose to return to their country if they did not want to be detained. “We have built a system and a website where people who are illegal are now able to register and they have the option to go home on their own and keep their families united,” she told CBS News this month.
Many human rights organizations and religious groups consider family detention to be inhumane and ineffective. Immigration lawyers noted that in the facilities, the lawsuit has a long history and insufficient allegations of health care and sexual abuse. In many cases, families were detained at the facility for less than two weeks when they last opened, officials said. Immigration lawyers say the detention time varies, with some families being held for several months.
Child rights lawyer Leecia Welch has been visiting detention centers for many years to ensure that the government complies with its legal obligations to properly care for children.
“I’ve talked to hundreds of children in custody and their stories still haunt me,” Ms. Welch said. “They share that they rarely go outside and see the sun, it’s cold, no toys, leaving dirty clothes behind.”
Two family detention centers in Texas are run by private prison companies contracted with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement. The location of Dilley, operated by Corecivic, can accommodate 2400 people. Another 1,328-bed facility in Karnes is managed by Geo Group.
A Texas Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES Rex, its attorneys have found more than a dozen families in the Kearns facility, including the nearest border crossing and people swept through law enforcement operations in U.S. cities. According to Raices, immigration has been in the United States for three weeks to 10 years, from several countries including Angola, Brazil, Colombia, Iran, Romania and Russia.
A family with two children, 6 and 8, was the first to be sent to Karns since the opening of the month. Their attorney Laura Flores-Dixit said they decided to immigrate to Canada after living in Ohio for nearly two years.
While crossing the northern border, the family was intercepted by Canadian officials and returned to the United States. She said they were held in a Buffalo border facility for 20 days before being transferred to a detention center in Texas.
Ms. Flores-Dixit said it was unreasonable for a family trying to leave the United States to be detained by young children. “Detention of children is by no means a humane solution,” she said.
Under the leadership of the Republican and Democratic governments, family detention faces legal obstacles. The University of Texas Austin Law School and the American Civil Liberties Union opened a family detention center in 2006 in Heto, Texas, northeast Austin.
Former Democratic President Barack Obama then restarted the practice in the fall of 2014, with a surge in families crossing the border after fleeing gang violence. Federal immigration officials closed the facilities in Atesia in months due to widespread opposition and criticism of due process delays, federal immigration officials have closed the facilities in Atesia in a number of months. Although legal challenges limit the time a family is limited, all three are used under the Trump administration.
After President Biden took office in 2021, he promised a humane immigration approach and his administration began releasing families from detention centers. But the Biden administration resumed this practice in 2023 as officials grew with immigrant families fleeing authoritarian government and poverty. This caused sharp criticism and ultimately did not proceed.
Sheelagh McNeill Contributed to the research.
