The Biden administration is moving forward with plans to end the long-term detention of migrant families, according to documents filed Friday in federal court, although advocates are concerned that the policy change will not be permanent.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) oversees three detention centers designed to accommodate migrant parents and children in deportation proceedings: two Texas facilities run by for-profit penitentiary companies and a smaller one run by officials in Berks County , Pennsylvania. Collectively, the facility has beds for more than 3,300 parents and children, but the Biden administration’s new plan would stop using it as long-term family detention centers, at least temporarily.
In documents filed in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, ICE said it planned to turn the Berks County Family Detention Center into an adult-only center. ICE also announced that Texas detention centers in Dilley and Karnes City would move to short-term processing facilities designed to support migrant families for less than three days.
Legal service providers representing migrant parents and children detained at these facilities said all of their clients had been released in recent days, but the groups had not yet received any guidance on why it occurred.
On Friday, ICE said only 13 families remained in custody earlier this week, noting that all people should be released on Sunday, as long as they tested negative for coronavirus.
“ICE would like to point out that it is reviewing its current position on family detention in (family detention facilities) to allow for a wider restructuring of physical facilities to better meet operational needs,” the agency said in its judicial presentation.
ICE did not respond to requests for comment on Friday’s court proceedings. The plan to turn Texas family detention centers into fast-processing facilities was first reported by San Antonio Express-News.
Andrea Meza, an immigration lawyer at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, the leading provider of legal services for families detained at the Karnes City facility, expressed concern that the plans for the Biden’s administration may not be lasting.
“The changes to Karnes and Dilley’s family prisons are, at best, reversible operational changes that reduce the damage from long-term detention and, at worst, a temporary move to calm concerns about this controversial immigration policy that will unravel with anti-immigrant political pressure, “Meza told CBS News, referring to family detention.
Meza also criticized the U.S. government for continuing to use a public health authority invoked by the Trump administration last spring to quickly expel most migrant adults and families to Mexico or their home countries without giving them away. the opportunity to seek humanitarian refuge.
While protecting unaccompanied minors from rapid expulsions, the Biden administration has repeatedly said it will maintain the policy, known as Title 42, of continuing to expel most people crossing borders until it can expand its capacity. government to prosecute asylum seekers. Some families with young children have been released in South Texas, where local officials are testing them for coronavirus.
In January, U.S. authorities on the southern border arrested more than 7,400 parents and children, 60 percent more than in December. More than 4,700 of them were expelled under the Trump-era public health order, according to government data.
Advocates have long called for an end to the detention of family immigration, which child welfare experts have deemed detrimental to minors and their psychological well-being. A 2016 report commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security called for the suspension of the practice.
The Obama administration drastically expanded the detention of parents and children in 2014, when there was a sharp increase in the number of Central American families entering U.S. border custody. The two current family detention facilities in Texas began supporting families that year.
In response to a lawsuit filed by lawyers for young migrant detainees, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ruled in 2015 that children detained with their parents were also entitled to the legal guarantees of the Settlement Agreement. of Flores of 1997, which requires the government to work for the release of minors in their custody.
Gee has also ruled that minors should not stay for more than 20 days in secure facilities that states are not licensed to house children. Currently, none of the three ICE family detention centers have licenses from state authorities certifying that the facility can care for children.
The Trump administration tried to detain migrant families for the duration of their asylum cases, proposing a rule in 2019 that would have nullified the Flores agreement and allowed the government to detain parents and children indefinitely. Gee prevented this regulation from coming into force.
President Biden’s campaign pledged to use alternative arrangements that would not require the detention of migrants, including the expansion of case management programs created to ensure that asylum seekers attend their court appointments. Mr. Biden also called for children and parents to be released together from ICE detention last summer.
Bridget Cambria, the executive director of Village – The People’s Justice Center, which has helped families at the Berks County Detention Center, said the Biden administration should not engage in parental detention and children, not even for short periods.
“You can’t continue to use the facilities that were used to punish families, because there’s always fear of coming back,” Cambria told CBS News. “All three facilities are safe and unlicensed detention facilities, so you have to question their use for any length of time.”