In reversal, Biden weighs detaining migrant families

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is considering detaining migrant families who cross into the U.S. illegally as it prepares to end COVID-19 restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. officials familiar with the plans. That would be a major reversal after officials in late 2021 stopped holding families in detention facilities.

Homeland Security officials are working through how to manage an expected increase of migrants at the border once the COVID-19 restrictions that have been in place since 2020 are lifted in May. Detention is one of several ideas under discussion and nothing has been finalized, the officials said.

If families were detained, they would be held for short periods of time, perhaps just a few days, and their cases expedited through immigration court, one official said. The officials were unauthorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on “rumors” that the policy was under consideration. “I’m not saying that it is, I’m not saying that it’s not,” she said. She refused to say whether President Joe Biden believed that detention of families was humane.

Under current policy, families who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border are released into the U.S. and told to appear in immigration court at a later date. During the height of the pandemic, few families were held in custody, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are now using those facilities to hold single adults who cross the border illegally.

But the U.S. has increasingly moved to restrict migrants as it faces record numbers of people coming to the Mexico border seeking asylum and is seeing some success at bringing down the number of migrants making a dangerous and often deadly journey.