Two notorious ICE detention centers get major overhaul
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is ending long-term detention of families at two controversial South Texas facilities, rebranding them as “reception centers,” officials have told advocates and relief organizations.
It’s a significant change at the two detention centers that activists have derided as “baby jails.” But the new policy falls short of their demands to close the facilities in Dilley and Karnes City.
ICE now will hold immigrants at the centers only long enough to administer COVID-19 tests and health screenings and to arrange for shelter and transportation, according to people who were on a Saturday phone call with immigration officials.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will no longer hold asylum screenings at the facilities, one of the biggest reasons families were kept in the centers for weeks or months at a time.
ICE officials said they were looking for somewhere other than the detention centers to quarantine immigrants who test positive for COVID-19, people on the call said.
Officials didn’t say exactly when the process will begin or how long it will take to release families, said Griselda Barrera, the San Antonio office director for American Gateways, which provides legal orientation to families in the 830-bed Karnes County Family Residential Center.
“The facilities are still going to be open,” Barrera said. “They’re still going to be holding the families. The difference between the process in the past is that families are going to be released faster,
and the priority will be to release the families and not detain them.”
An ICE spokeswoman wouldn’t confirm the details relayed by those on the call but said Thursday that there were 65 people in the Karnes City facility and 382 at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley. Together, the two facilities can hold around 3,200 immigrants.
Most stay there between 12 and 19 days, the spokeswoman said. Most recently, the Karnes County center was holding families that were going to be expelled from the country without being allowed to make asylum claims under COVID-19 protocols. In contrast, some of those who until recently were held in Dilley had been there for more than a year as they appealed deportation orders.
The Trump administration forced about 25,000 asylum-seekers in the last two years to wait in Mexico to see an immigration judge and expelled hundreds of thousands of people caught crossing the border illegally without letting them make asylum claims.
The changes at Dilley and Karnes City are part of an immigration overhaul by President Joe Biden. His administration has started to allow small groups of asylumseekers through the border — including 27 who crossed Thursday into Brownsville — and it has tried to place a temporary moratorium on deportations. A federal judge has blocked the moratorium.
Manoj Govindaiah, director of litigation at RAICES, a nonprofit that represents immigrants, welcomed the news but said it was inappropriate to detain families for any length of time.
“This change is a positive one,” Govindaiah said. “I don’t want to suggest that it’s not, but it’s not enough, because Karnes is still a former prison.”
Biden’s changes have been criticized on the other side of the debate as encouraging immigrants to make the dangerous journey to the U.S., regardless of whether they’ll be able to obtain legal status here.
“Anytime when there’s the perception of relaxed immigration policies or laws, it has a tendency to create influxes of people who believe they can come in with greater ease,” said Julian Calderas, the former deputy field office director for ICE in San Antonio.
Under the family detention plan, after parents with children enter the U.S. and are screened at Dilley and Karnes City, they’ll need access to transportation and shelter.
In the past, families have been taken to San Antonio International Airport or the downtown bus station. At times, mass releases have strained the resources of the city government and aid organizations trying to ensure that families aren’t left on the street overnight.
“I think President Biden has a very difficult task,” said J. Antonio Fernandez, the president and CEO of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of San Antonio. “I can tell you, if thousands of people come through San Antonio, Catholic Charities cannot do this alone.”
Fernandez, who was also briefed on the changes, praised the decision to let families proceed with asylum claims and cut the time they’re held at the detention centers.
Barrera said ICE will also have to ensure that families understand if they need to check in with the agency or appear in court after they’re released.
“A lot of times folks that leave the facilities aren’t aware of the next steps, so therefore they’re set up for failure,” she said.
Saturday’s phone call, which included city officials, was cast as a first step in coordinating releases under the new policy.
City of San Antonio officials would not agree to an interview for this story.
An ICE spokeswoman shared a written statement in response to questions.
“Custody determinations are made on a case-by-case basis in accordance with U.S. law and DHS policy,” the statement read, referring to the Department of Homeland Security. “Individuals can be released from custody based on the facts and circumstances of their cases and may be placed in alternatives to detention, including release on recognizance or formal monitoring programs.”
Immigration advocates say Biden isn’t going far enough to break with the past. The recent opening of an Office of Refugee Resettlement facility in Carrizo Springs to hold unaccompanied immigrant children drew condemnation last week.
The 2,400-bed Dilley facility is the largest family detention center in the country. It was opened by the Obama administration in 2014 to hold a surge of Central American families who surrendered at the border and requested asylum.
Advocates said that by keeping them far from cities, ICE could prevent the families from having effective legal representation, dooming them to deportation. The center in Karnes City is the only similar family detention facility in the U.S.
Initially, families were held at the detention centers until their asylum cases were heard by an immigration judge. In 2015, a federal judge in California found that policy violated a landmark settlement determining the treatment of children in government custody. Afterward, most families were released within 20 days.
The changes announced by ICE will eliminate one of the biggest barriers to quickly releasing families: Credible fear interviews, the first step in the asylum process. Officials told advocates that those interviews will no longer be held at the Dilley and Karnes facilities, so families will no longer have to wait days or weeks to see an asylum officer. They didn’t say if asylumseeking families will undergo that screening somewhere else or proceed directly to immigration court.
Even after the judge’s 2015 ruling, some families were kept in detention for years until their immigration court proceedings were completed. That also will end, Barrera said.