The sudden release of hundreds of migrants in Phoenix marks the beginning of the demolition work of a dam

WASHINGTON – Hundreds of refugee-seeking migrant families in the United States have been released from detention in Arizona this week, without notice or instructions, where to go, how to find relatives or go to court.

A senior Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News that the release was "the beginning of a barrage break" as family detention centers, now home to thousands of migrants, reach their capacity. Max.

US immigration and customs officers release families from mass detention without following the usual protocol that guarantees immigrants the means to go to their hearing and find their relatives in the United States.

Adults have ankle monitors to track their whereabouts until the date set for their appearance in court to plead their case before an asylum judge.

"It's the beginning of a dam break," said the manager. "You will soon see this on the other side of the southern border."

The reason, said the official, is the growing number of immigrant families going to the United States to seek asylum. In August, the last month for which data are available, more than 12,700 parents and children traveling together were apprehended crossing the US-Mexico border, compared with 4,193 in August 2017.

ICE spokeswoman, Yasmeen O 'Keefe, said that because of the large number of families coming up along the Arizona border, ICE can no longer examine the displacement plans of each immigrant before their release without violating the agreement of the Federal Court, called Flores settlement, time children can be detained up to 20 days.

"To mitigate this risk, ICE has begun restricting these exams in Arizona starting Sunday, October 7," said O & # 39; Keefe.

Immediately, churches and nonprofit organizations in Arizona began to feel the effects of this policy. A representative from a Phoenix church, who asked not to be named in order to avoid retaliation from anti-immigration protesters, said she had received a message from the ## 147 ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ICE that he would start bringing in immigrants on weekends.

On Monday night, his church provided shelter, food, showers and Greyhound bus tickets to more than 100 immigrants. Previously, the highest number of immigrants that the church had housed had grown to about 30 people, she said.

She does not know how many came without travel arrangements and ICE did not tell her church that many had not been helped for these arrangements.

"We are all sitting here, all volunteers, running to make sure we have enough pizza to feed everyone," she said. "We spend so much time on minutiae that we really do not know what's going on.Nobody told us that this was part of a broader policy."