In court file, ICE says it effectively ends the use of family detention

WASHINGTON – In a filing in federal court on Friday night, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it was moving family detention centers to short-term facilities that will release families after 72 maximum hours.

The disclosure of the ICE, made in connection with the Flores lawsuit filed over a decade ago on behalf of immigrant children, actually suggests that the agency is ending family detention, a policy launched under the ICE. Obama administration in 2014.

The Trump administration has sought to expand family detention by detaining families for 20 days, the limit imposed by the judge in the Flores case.

As of Friday, only 13 families were still in ICE detention and seven were due to be released that day. The remaining six families are expected to be released on March 7 unless they test positive for Covid-19, in which case they will have to stay for a period of quarantine before being released.

During the early days of the Biden administration, ICE operated three family detention centers: two in Texas, located in Dilley and Karnes counties, and one in Pennsylvania. As of February 26, all families at the Pennsylvania facility have been released, according to Friday’s filing.

The two Texas facilities will become centers in the short term, while the Pennsylvania facility, the Berks Family Residential Center, will no longer house families, according to the filing.

In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the ICE detention was “not in the place of a family.”

Bridget Cambria, immigration lawyer for the nonprofit Aldea – The People’s Justice Center, hailed the disclosure of the ICE as a victory for lawyers, but said the family detention policy of the agency was not over until all establishments were closed.

“The removal of parents and children from Berks is the result of years of advocacy, organization and litigation which have all shown that the detention of families is immoral and inhuman, that the imprisonment of children for any period of time is bad and of course our community absolutely rejects the idea of ​​a baby jail in our backyard, ”said Cambria, who says her organization has represented thousands of families detained in Berks since. 2014.

She added, “However, we do not welcome the continued incarceration of human beings in ICE custody at Berks in any form. And the fight for family detention is not over until [the Department of Homeland Security] cancels contracts with existing family detention centers in Texas and shuts down Dilley and Karnes. “

NBC News previously reported that the Biden administration planned to drastically reduce the number of immigrant families in ICE custody, paving the way for an end to the family detention policy.