Family detention space goes unused as president warns of migrant crisis

HOUSTON — President Donald Trump has warned that Central American families are staging an “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border, and his administration regularly complains about having to “catch and release” migrants.

At the same time, his administration has stopped using one of three family detention centers to hold parents and children and left almost 2,000 beds unused at the other two. It says it does not have the resources to transport migrants to the centers.

The Karnes County Residential Center in Texas used to hold up to 800 parents and children at a time. But ICE last month started to release families until they were all gone from Karnes. The population at the family detention center in nearby Dilley, Texas, also was reduced and remains at roughly a quarter of its 2,400-person capacity. A 96-person facility in Pennsylvania had only 18 immigrants this week.

Meanwhile, the numbers of parents and children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border have surged, leading immigration officials to declare the situation a crisis. In a statement, ICE said the surge left it “overwhelmed” and unable to transport families to the facilities.

But immigrant advocates say they don’t believe ICE. They say the government has reduced family detention space for political reasons — to show that Democrats’ refusal to change laws to allow for longer family detention and more deportations has left officials with no choice but to catch and release.

Heiress pleads guilty in sex cult case

NEW YORK — An heiress pleaded guilty on Friday in a sensational case accusing a cult-like upstate New York group of creating a secret harem of sex slaves for the group’s self-anointed spiritual leader.

Clare Bronfman admitted in her plea in federal court in Brooklyn that she harbored someone who was living in the U.S. illegally for unpaid “labor and services” and that she committed credit card fraud on behalf of Keith Raniere, the leader of a group called NXIVM.

Bronfman — the 40-year-old daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr. — agreed to forfeit $6 million from a fortune prosecutors say is worth $200 million. She faces more than two years in prison.