SAN ANTONIO — After tens of thousands of migrant families, most from Central America, crossed into Texas last summer, the government poured millions of dollars into two large detention centers meant to hold women and children — and keep more from coming.
But as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expands the centers to make space for the next wave of arrivals, the agency faces legal and political challenges that could shut them down. And a new flow of migrants raises questions as to whether the strategy has deterred migration at all.
One center is a purpose-built, 50-acre campus in Dilley, an hour’s drive southwest of San Antonio. Another, smaller center is tucked among derricks in Karnes City. They will be able to house some 3,400 migrants once they reach full capacity, just a fraction of those crossing, leaving ICE with few options besides releasing many with notices to appear in court, as it did in the past.
Some 130 House Democrats and 33 senators have called on the government to halt family detention, while a federal judge in California has tentatively ruled that the policy violates parts of an 18-year-old court settlement that says immigrant children cannot be held in secure facilities. ICE responded by pledging to improve its centers while it awaits the judge’s ruling.
“We are moving in the direction of closing these centers down,” said Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.
In April, Judge Dolly Gee tentatively ruled that family detention violates parts of a 1997 settlement in a case known as Flores vs. Meese. The settlement stipulates that migrant children must be released only to foster care, relatives or — if they must be held — in the least restrictive environment possible in facilities licensed to care for children.
According to the memo, Gee questioned whether the centers had served that purpose.
Family detention isn’t cheap. An ICE official said it costs $300 per day for each woman or child housed at Dilley. At a capacity of 2,400 people, it will cost the federal government $720,000 a day, or nearly $263 million a year. The smaller detention center in Karnes City costs ICE $160 per detainee per day and is expected to have 1,000 beds by year’s end. The only other family detention center is in Berks County, Pa. For-profit prison operators manage all three facilities overseen by ICE.
