Detention
Reports: Detention Doesn’t Deter Migrants and Refugees From Coming to United States
In 2009, the Obama Administration ended family detention at the infamous T. Don Hutto jail in Texas and cut the number of immigrants in family detention to less than a hundred. However, after the surge of Central American migrants last summer, the Administration reinstituted the appalling practice of family… Read More
Mothers and Children Suffer In Immigration Detention While Administration Makes its Point
Estrella is a four-year-old girl who has been locked-up in U.S. detention centers for over eight months or one fifth of her life. She is chronically ill and has been hospitalized for acute bronchitis. She has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder with anxiety, and major depressive episode. Read More
Private Prison Industry Lobbies for Detention of Immigrants
Since 2009, Congress has instructed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to maintain 34,000 beds in immigrant detention facilities across the country, a policy known as “the bed mandate.” This mandate costs the American taxpayer $5.05 million per day–or $159 a day per immigrant detainee. A new… Read More
Faith Leaders Visit Immigrant Detention Center as Mothers Begin Hunger Strike
Faith leaders from around the country visited the Dilley family detention center in Texas just days before mothers in the Karnes detention facility, another Texas family detention center located less than 100 miles from Dilley, began a hunger strike. Shortly after their visit last week, the clerics declared… Read More
Government Claims Children in Family Detention Centers Are Not Entitled to Protections
The outcry against the detention of children and women seeking protection from violence continues. Just yesterday, over 95 national and local civil rights, human rights, immigrants’ rights, and religious organizations sent a letter to President Obama outlining the mounting criticism of family detention and urging the Administration to follow… Read More
Court Orders DHS to Stop Detaining Mothers and Children to Deter Future Immigration Flow
In June 2014, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began implementing a border security policy of detaining nearly all mothers and children fleeing violence and persecution in Central America. DHS vastly increased its detention capacity for families to “send the message unequivocally that if you come here you… Read More
The Detention of Children and Their Families is Still Unjust and Still Against the Law
Detaining immigrant children is nothing new. In 1997, the government settled a lawsuit, Flores v. Reno, about the inhumane treatment of immigrant children held in detention. The settlement agreement said officials would follow a set of minimum national standards for the detention, release, and treatment of children subject to immigration… Read More
New York Times Exposes ‘Shame of America’s Family Detention Camps’
The New York Times details the government’s dangerous and expanding practice of detaining women and children who have recently crossed our southwest border in the magazine’s cover story this weekend “The Shame of America’s Family Detention Camps.” The facility the Times describes in Artesia, New Mexico, has since been… Read More
A Compelling Case Study in Family Detention and Pro Bono Counsel
When the family detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, was hastily propped up by the U.S. government in order to detain and rapidly process women and children for deportation, immigration rights advocates raised alarms. Over the course of several months, as an uptick in families and unaccompanied minors appeared at… Read More
New Family Detention Facility Opens in Dilley, Texas, Despite Due Process Problems
The Department of Homeland Security opened the largest immigrant family detention center in Dilley, Texas this week. The privately owned facility is designed to house 2,400 people—mostly women and children—who are caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The opening of this detention center reflects the administration’s continuing commitment to its flawed… Read More
Make a contribution
Make a direct impact on the lives of immigrants.
