Advocacy groups for migrants on the US southern border are protesting conditions at Texas’ Fort Bliss, an Army base that the Biden administration has opened as an emergency holding facility. Nearly 5,000 minors who crossed the border without a parent or guardian are currently being held in large tents at the base. This is about a quarter of the total number of minors in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a body of the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). As of late May, nearly 600 of these had spent 40 days or longer at the “megasite.” Nearly 1,700 minors had been there for at least a month, according to government data. Unlike traditional HHS shelters for migrant children, Fort Bliss and other emergency “influx” sites are not licensed by state authorities to care for minors, and have lower standards of care.
Another 5,000 or so minors are being held by US Customs & Border Protection (CBP), awaiting transfer to HHS facilities. Several new “influx” sites were established to deal with a large surge of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border since the change in administration earlier this year.
“This is exactly what we hoped would not happen,” said Luz Lopez-Ortiz, attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “[T]his new administration [was] coming out and saying ‘No more,’ ‘We are not going to cage children’… many of us believed that. It seems that it’s not the case at this point. It seems like the Biden administration has unfortunately slid back into a page from the Trump playbook.” (CBS News, May 22; El Paso Matters, May 20; AP, May 11; AP, El Paso Times, March 30; Border Report, March 25)
On April 30, some 30 activists walked the nearly eight miles from El Paso’s main port of entry to the gates of Fort Bliss, to draw attention to conditions at the facility. Organizers included the groups Witness at the Border, the Border Network for Human Rights and the Hope Border Institute. Participants urged Biden to do away with Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control order that allows immigration officials to immediately expel individuals and families crossing the US Mexico border without authorization. Advocates say the order, a pandemic emergency measure, is prompting migrant families to send their children across the border alone, knowing that unaccompanied minors are exempt from the rule. (Border Report, April 30)
The Biden administration has also re-opened the detention center at Carrizo Springs, Tex., a former camp for oil-field workers now run by run by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold minors arriving at the border unaccompanied. The Trump administration shuttered the facility in late July 2019, less than one month after it opened. Its re-opening this year led to charges that the new administration was again holding “kids in cages.”
However, it should be noted that the Trump-era photos that sparked outrage of minors in “cages” (“chain-link partitions” in official parlance) were from other detention facilities, run by CBP. Carrizo Springs, in contrast, had much more humane conditions, with beds, classrooms and dining areas—if not up to the standards of the licensed HHS shelters. It should also be noted that Trump’s family separation policy has been overturned by the new administration, and the kids being held at Carrizo Springs and Fort Bliss today arrived at the border without an adult—they were not taken from their parents or guardians by force, as under Trump.
The surge of unaccompanied minors does face authorities with difficult decisions. Many can be united with family members already in the United States. But some have no family in the US, and cannot be released without an adult sponsor taking custody. Releasing them to the wrong person holds risks of its own; in 2014, for instance, there was outrage after traffickers took some youths who were released from HHS custody to go work on an egg farm in Ohio, evidently against their will. (AP, Feb. 26; WaPo, Feb. 23)
Biden blocked from expelling migrant families under Title 42
A federal judge blocked the Biden administration from continuing to use a Trump-era public health order to expel migrant families arriving at the southern border. In a 58-page ruling, US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington DC found that the Title 42 policy does not authorize the expulsion of migrants—and does not allow for those removed to be denied the opportunity to seek asylum in the US. The judge’s order will go into effect in 14 days. The Biden administration has used the so-called Title 42 policy to swiftly return border crossers without giving them the chance to apply for asylum. (Politico, The Hill)
Biden administration issues new immigration detention directive
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a new immigration directive governing the detention of minors, incapacitated adults and their guardians. The new Biden administration directive will replace the Trump-era directive on minors and their families from 2017.
The prior directive, which has been in force since April 2017, was created in response to the controversial family separation policy practiced earlier in the Trump administration, which reports say has led to children being separated from their parents for years. It required ICE officials to respect and follow all family court proceedings to the best of their ability. It also protected family visitation rights. However, it did not require ICE officials to inquire as to the parental status of detainees.
The new directive requires ICE officials to ask every detainee or non-citizen they encounter what their parental status is. It also requires that if a parent or guardian must be detained, they are detained in a facility that is conducive to visitation if appropriate. It also requires extensive training for ICE officials at all levels to properly enforce the newest guidelines.
ICE acting director Tae D. Johnson, celebrated the new guidelines, stating: “In the course of their duties, our officers and special agents will preserve family unity and the parental rights of noncitizen parents and legal guardians to the greatest extent possible. ICE will ensure that our civil immigration enforcement activities do not unnecessarily disrupt or infringe upon the parental or guardianship rights of noncitizen parents or legal guardians of minor children or incapacitated adults.” (Jurist)
Supreme Court retains Title 42 deportation policy
In a 5-4 vote the US Supreme Court on Dec. 27 allowed Title 42, a Trump-era deportation policy, to remain in effect. With the decision, the court put on hold a lower court ruling that would have ended the Title 42 policy last week. President Joe Biden stated that federal government will comply with the order and is preparing for the court’s full review in February 2023. (Jurist)
998 children separated under Trump admin yet to be reunited
On the two year anniversary of President Biden establishing the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families, the US Department of Homeland Security released a factsheet about the efforts that have been made to identify and reunite children with their families, who were separated under the Trump administration.
The factsheet indicated that the Task Force has reunited more than 600 children who were separated from their families under the prior administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy. The Task Force identified 3,924 children who were separated between January 20 2017, and January 20 2021. As of February 2023, 2,926 separated children had been reunified, either before the establishment of the Task Force or through the leadership of the Task Force.
Of the 998 children yet to be reunited, 148 children are in the process of reunification and 183 families have been informed of the opportunity to reunify by a contracted NGO.
In an accompanying statement released by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, he emphasized: “We understand that our critical work is not finished… We remain steadfast in our commitment to fulfill President Biden’s pledge to reunify all children who were separated from their families under the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy to the greatest extent possible, and we continue to work diligently to incorporate the foundational principle of family unity in our policies and operations.” (Jurist)
Senators decry solitary confinement of immigrants
A dozen senators on March 29 urged the US Department of Homeland Security to reform its system of placing detained immigrants in solitary confinement, referring to the practice as a “clear violation of international norms” in a heated letter.
The senators wrote that in recent years, solitary confinement has been on the rise in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers, saying the practice had increased by 61% between 2022 and 2023, and that between 2018 and 2023, ICE officials ordered some 14,000 periods in solitary. (Jurist)