Trump administration resumes detention of immigrant families after Biden-era pause

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration resumed family detention of immigrants last week in a South Texas facility after a Biden-era pause, a legal nonprofit group providing services to migrant families said Wednesday.

Fourteen immigrant families with children as young as one year old were in the detention facility in Karnes County, Texas, about 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) southeast of San Antonio, according to RAICES, which provides services to families at the center. The families are originally from Colombia, Romania, Iran, Angola, Russia, Armenia, Turkey and Brazil.

Faisal Al-Juburi, the organization’s chief external affairs officer, said the families had been detained in the U.S. near the Mexican and Canadian borders. Some were in the U.S. for as little as 20 days and others for as long as about 10 years, Al-Juburi said. The nonprofit provided service to adult detainees at the center prior to last week's shift in the center’s detention population when the adult detainees were moved out.

Both the Obama administration and Trump's first administration detained families until their immigration cases played out. Trump severely curbed asylum and forcibly separated children from their parents at the border in a policy widely denounced as inhumane.

The practice of family detention was largely halted, but not abolished, during the Biden administration, which briefly considered restarting it in 2023.

U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Wednesday.

Geo Group, the private corporation that operates the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center, said the facility can hold up to 1,328 people in a statement issued Monday. It said its contract with the federal government runs through August 2029 and will generate about $79 million in revenue in its first year.

It's the second facility planned for family detention. Last week, CoreCivic, a company that operates detention centers, announced it entered into a contract with ICE to hold immigrant families at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, with a capacity of 2,400 people.

Immigration advocates expressed concern for the welfare of children held in detention.

Dr. Alan Shapiro is a cofounder and chief strategy officer for Terra Firma National, which works to provide immigrant children and families access to healthcare and legal representation. Shapiro visited family detention centers under the first Trump administration and said detained children experienced behavioral regression, anger and thoughts of self-harm.

“We also heard about suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts from children in the facility themselves and other significant mental health concerns, including self-harm and eating disorders that were not present prior to detention," Shapiro said.