Houston, Texas — The Trump administration is reinstating the contentious policy of detaining migrant families with children in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, marking a new chapter in its efforts to execute a deportation initiative that the president claims will be the most extensive in U.S. history.
On Thursday, ICE began the detention of the initial group of migrant parents and children in a facility in Texas that is designated for families with minors, as revealed by an internal government report obtained by CBS News. This group consists of three children, according to the report.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, stated that the migrants have deportation orders and confirmed that the Trump administration is repurposing two Texas immigration detention centers to accommodate families who are unlawfully present in the U.S.
“We will not disregard the rule of law,” McLaughlin affirmed in her discussion with CBS News.
The Karnes detention facility is situated in Karnes City, Texas, a small community located east of San Antonio. The other ICE center equipped to house families with minor children is in Dilley, Texas, another small town to the south of San Antonio. The Biden administration previously utilized these facilities to detain migrant adults.
This action by the Trump administration reverses a policy change made by the Biden administration, which eliminated the long-term detention of migrant families. This approach was initiated on a broader scale by the Obama administration as a deterrent against families crossing the southern border illegally.
Child welfare advocates and experts have consistently criticized family detention, asserting that it negatively impacts children and their mental health. A report from 2016, commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security, recommended phasing out family immigration detention.
“There is no safe method to detain families, nor is there any valid rationale for this inhumane practice,” remarked Neha Desai, an attorney at the California-based National Center of Youth Law, who represents migrant children in a federal court case.
The U.S. government has historically grappled with legal, humanitarian, and operational hurdles when managing migrant parents and children lacking legal permission to remain in the country. In 2015, a federal judge ruled that children should generally not be held for more than 20 days, significantly curtailing family detention practices within the immigration framework.
The reinstatement of family detention represents the latest move by the Trump administration to enhance ICE’s authority to arrest, detain, and deport migrants who are unlawfully in the U.S.
ICE officials have been under immense pressure from senior officials in the Trump administration to increase the pace of arrests and deportations.
In contrast to its measures to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, which have produced a 25-year low in unlawful crossings, the Trump administration’s domestic immigration enforcement initiatives are encountering operational challenges.
The capacity of ICE’s detention facilities, for instance, has been severely strained. As of Thursday, the agency’s detention system was operating at 120% capacity, accommodating over 46,000 migrants, despite an official capacity of only 38,000 beds, according to internal government statistics.
