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family detention
Nearly 400 Rights Groups Demand Biden Permanently End Family Detention
"No version of family detention, whether referred to as a detention facility, short-term processing center, emergency family staging center, or by any other name, is acceptable," the groups said.
Mar 15, 2023
Nearly 400 immigration justice and other advocacy groups on Wednesday added their voices to the call for President Joe Biden to reject family detention, amid reports that the White House is considering a revival of the practice that was used by the Trump and Obama administrations—despite the fact that it subjected thousands of families to numerous abuses and trauma.
The ACLU, Bend the Arc, and the National Immigration Law Center were among 383 groups that sent a letter to Biden Wednesday morning, calling on the president to keep the pledge he made when he took office in 2021 "to end family detention and to pursue just, compassionate, and humane immigration policies."
Despite that promise, as Common Dreams reported last week, multiple media outlets have reported that the administration is considering once against detaining families in facilities that have been used under the Biden administration to detain single adults.
The groups warned that even short-term detention for families with children is "unacceptable."
"Reinstating a policy of detaining families in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody, even for short periods of time, would be a horrifying reversal of your past policies and commitments," reads the letter. "No version of family detention, whether referred to as a detention facility, short-term processing center, emergency family staging center, or by any other name, is acceptable."
"Due process and access to counsel concerns will be magnified if the administration's recently promulgated asylum ban rule goes into effect, heightening the evidentiary standard for families to access the ability to seek protection."
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Department of Homeland Security's own medical experts have found that detention for any length of time, with or without parents or guardians, is harmful to children. The latter group, who served as whistleblowers when the Trump administration detained thousands of families and children, released a report in 2019 that detailed medical neglect which resulted in four deaths.
A 2017 report by AAP found that family detention centers provided "delayed medical care, inadequate education services, and limited mental health services," and that children who have been detained, even for short periods of time, "may experience developmental delay and poor psychological adjustment, potentially affecting functioning in school."
In 2016, the United Nations human rights office warned that the detention of children "can be devastating for a child and is not a legitimate response under international human rights law."
The letter sent Wednesday also noted that family detention robs families of due process, with "limited access to counsel at these facilities, making it nearly impossible to pursue protection claims under U.S. immigration law."
"These due process and access to counsel concerns will be magnified if the administration's recently promulgated asylum ban rule goes into effect, heightening the evidentiary standard for families to access the ability to seek protection," said the groups, referring to a proposed rule that would render certain undocumented immigrants ineligible for asylum.
"We urge you to reverse course on the proposed asylum ban rule, and are horrified that the punitive policy could be coupled with family detention," they continued. "This will essentially mean that these facilities will become deportation factories as families scramble to defend their asylum eligibility while trying to protect their children from the agony of detention."
The letter was sent as officials within the Biden administration are reportedly expressing concerns about the return of family detention. According to Greg Sargent at The Washington Post, ICE officials have "consistently" told the White House that "they don't want to get into the business of detaining children or families" again due to concerns about "safety, cost, and harm."
"We've seen family detentions before," a source from the agency told Sargent, "and it's been not pretty."
Biden appears motivated to introduce a crackdown on immigration to avoid criticism from the Republican Party, but as Sargent noted, "Republicans will attack him for creating no new consequences for border crossings even as we are seeing an escalation in them."
"But such attacks should be harder to mount if even ICE officials aren't on board with family detentions," he added. "And there's no reason for the administration to let fear of GOP attacks dictate anything. Instead, Biden should hew to the values that led him to criticize the practice in the first place and forcefully defend that decision."
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'Absolutely Shameful': Biden Reportedly Weighing Revival of Migrant Family Detentions
"I've got one word for them: unacceptable," responded one immigration attorney.
Mar 07, 2023
Multiple news outlets reported late Monday that the Biden administration is considering restarting migrant family detentions that were used extensively by previous administrations in an attempt to crack down on border crossings.
While "no final decision has been made," according toThe New York Times, "the move would be a stark reversal for President Biden, who came into office promising to adopt a more compassionate approach to the border after the harsh policies of his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump."
Immigrant rights advocates were quick to warn Biden against following through with any plan to revive migrant family detentions, which the administration had largely shut down.
"I've got one word for them: unacceptable," wrote Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council.
"The thing about family detention is not only that it's cruel and inhumane," Reichlin-Melnick added, "but also that it was a money pit and absolutely useless as a 'deterrent.'"
Bob Libal, an immigration justice advocate and consultant with Human Rights Watch, said it is "absolutely shameful that this is even being considered again."
Both the Obama and Trump administrations made expansive use of family detention, with the latter attempting to rescind limits on how long children can be held in migrant detention facilities—an effort that was ultimately blocked in federal court.
On the campaign trail, Biden condemned the practice of family detention—as well as the separation of migrant families—as morally bankrupt, writing in a Twitter post: "Children should be released from ICE detention with their parents immediately. This is pretty simple, and I can't believe I have to say it: Families belong together."
But with the 2024 election looming, the Biden administration has moved to reinstate immigration policies that it previously denounced as cruel—including a Trump-era asylum ban—as it prepares for the May expiration of Title 42, another Trump administration policy that Biden has used to rapidly deport migrants.
\u201cNO NO NO NO NO NO. \n\n\u201cThe administration will continue to prioritize safe, orderly and humane processing of migrants,\u201d Luis Miranda, a department spokesman, said in a statement.\u201d\n\nFAMILY DETENTION IS INHERENTLY INHUMANE. BABY JAILS ARE INHUMANE. https://t.co/FajlFvBGKj\u201d— Valeria Gomez (@Valeria Gomez) 1678151345
Reutersreported Monday that in addition to restarting family detentions, the Biden administration is "weighing reviving immigration arrests of migrant families within the United States who have been ordered deported."
"It's all on the table," an unnamed official told the outlet.
In the place of family detentions, the Biden administration has used ankle bracelets and other methods—decried as "digital prisons" by rights groups—to track migrant families as they move through the court system.
But as the Detention Watch Network has observed, the Biden administration did not immediately end its contracts with facilities that were previously used to hold migrant families.
"Instead, following cues from the Obama administration, it converted the contract with Berks County to detain adult women and shifted its usage of the Dilley facility to detain single adults," the organization noted.
Citing one unnamed official, CNNreported Monday that the Biden administration is "looking at multiple options for how to handle migrant families at the southern border, not all of them involving family detention."
"Another source familiar with the deliberations added that among the options discussed are some that wouldn't involve detaining families in ICE facilities," CNN added. "This source said that family detentions would be limited to a small number of days—an attempt to set the policy apart from the Trump administration's handling of family detentions."
But it's not likely that rights groups and advocates would accept such an alternative.
"I was part of a legal team that sued to get access to the first family detention center that President Obama opened (in Artesia, N.M.)," Karen Tumlin, a civil rights litigator, recounted Monday. "Talking to families and kids detained at Artesia was one of the lowest points of my legal career. I can see the cribs lining the hallway now, families and babies crammed into tiny rooms."
"A family detention policy is a policy of adding trauma to trauma," Tumlin added. "It is painful to see this as a rumored proposal from the Biden administration."
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