Top Democrats are discouraging President Joe Biden from reauthorizing a cruel immigration policy that locks entire families away like common criminals.
In early March, sources in the Biden administration told The New York Times that the president’s immigration officials are considering reauthorizing migrant family detention, a policy that calls for jailing undocumented migrant families in the same facility. The policy was used in the Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies, and it has been widely criticized for its inhumanity and its facilitation of human rights abuses.
The policy was used in the Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies, and it has been widely criticized for its inhumanity and its facilitation of human rights abuses.
As the Times noted, “The Biden administration has largely ended the practice of family detention, instead releasing families into the United States temporarily and using ankle bracelets, traceable cellphones or other methods to keep track of them.”
But as May approaches, so does the court-approved end of Title 42. That bigoted policy, devised during Donald Trump’s presidency, allows the U.S. to turn away asylum-seekers on purported public health grounds. Now it appears Biden and company want to use the threat of locking families away to stave off a potential influx of migrants once Title 42 is lifted.
For Biden, who publicly denounced Trump’s use of migrant family detention as a candidate in 2020 and vowed to adhere to more compassionate immigration policies as president, such a move is a betrayal of the liberal voters who trusted he would keep his word.
That’s why several Democratic caucus chairs issued a statement this month after it was reported that the Biden administration was planning to revive the family detention policy. And they used remarks from Biden’s own head of homeland security to make their point.
“We agree with Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas when he said, ‘A detention center is not where a family belongs,’” wrote the chairs of the Hispanic, Progressive and Asian Pacific American caucuses. “We should not return to the failed policies of the past. There is no safe or humane way to detain families and children, and such detention does not serve as a deterrent to migration. We strongly urge the administration to reject this wrongheaded approach.”
The backlash is ongoing.
Earlier this week, several Democrats, led by Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Dick Durbin of Illinois, also voiced their disapproval of the policy in a letter to Biden.
“We understand that your Administration faces significant challenges — particularly in light of Congressional failure to pass immigration reform — to manage an influx of asylum seekers arriving at our southern border,” they wrote. “However, the recent past has taught us that family detention is both morally reprehensible and ineffective as an immigration management tool.”
And on Tuesday, more than 100 Democratic members of the House of Representatives sent a similar letter discouraging the Biden administration from bringing back family detentions.
“Shortly after you took office, you rightfully committed to end the practice of detaining families and children, with the last family detention facility closing in December of 2021,” the signatories wrote. “We urge you to maintain your commitment to not detaining families and children and not return to a cruel policy of the past.”
Tuesday’s letter from House members came on the same day that Mayorkas said in Senate testimony that “no decision has been made” with regard to reviving migrant family detention.
That said, a chorus of opposition has formed within the president's own party. We’ll soon find out whether he is actually listening to them, or if he’s putting his fingers in his ears and pushing forward with family detention anyway.