Justice Department Asks Judge to Leave Migrant Families in Detention Centers

By Oliver Laughland, Guardian UK

09 August 15

A response to ruling says June reforms for speeding release of detainees are enough and that facilities are an effective tool to deter border crossings

he Obama administration has urged a federal judge to reassess a ruling that ordered the release of thousands of immigrant mothers and children from family detention centres, arguing that the controversial federal facilities are an effective tool to deter migrants from crossing the southern border into the United States.

In a 52-page response to a decision made last month by Judge Dolly Gee in the federal district court for central California, the US Department of Justice argues that the ruling could be used by human traffickers “who are known to exploit changes in immigration policy” and “could cause another notable increase in the numbers of parents choosing to cross the border with their children”.

The government’s response, however, concedes that Border Patrol agents have apprehended only 24,901 family members so far this fiscal year, compared with 68,445 in total last year, a 55% annual decrease.

Gee ruled in July that the federal government’s two privately run family detention centres in Texas were operated in a manner that violated a 1997 court settlement, which requires migrant children be held in the least restrictive facilities possible and be granted bail in all but exceptional circumstances.

The detention centres at Dilley and Karnes County, along with a publicly managed centre in Berks County, near Philadelphia, have been broadly criticised by migrant advocates as well as a group of 136 House Democrats, for their poor facilities and the lengthy periods – in some cases over a year – of detention. A number of protests and hunger strikes have broken out at the Texas facilities in recent months.

The response filed late on Thursday, however, argues that a raft of reforms aimed at speeding up the processing of protection claims at the centres, announced by homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson in June, should mitigate against Gee’s decision by shortening the average time of detention.

The submission argues that 60% of detainees brought to the centre between 28 June and 11 July had been released or removed within 30 days, compared with the last six months of 2014 when just 21% had been released within a month.

It also argues that Gee’s ruling, if enforced, would effectively give Department of Homeland Security officials only five days to initiate removal proceedings before mandatory release of a detainee family. This, the submission argues, “would functionally terminate the ability of DHS to place families into expedited removal or reinstatement proceeding”.

The government currently detains almost 1,500 mothers and children at the three facilities; 1,182 in Dilley, 193 in Karnes, and 76 in Berks County.

The formal response to Gee’s decision was met with sharp criticism from immigrant advocates, who point out the vast majority of detainees are asylum seekers fleeing persecution in Central and South America.

“We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has continued arguing in favor of family detention – which has been widely discredited by the human rights community as well as formerly detained women who have directly experienced the re-traumatizing impacts of this practice,” said Miriam Yeung, co-chair of the migrant’s rights group We Belong Together.

“The administration’s experiment over the past two years has proven that family detention is an unworkable solution to address our country’s broken immigration system. Mothers and children are paying the price,” she added.

A group of House Democrats, including representatives Zoe Lofgren and Lucille Roybal-Allard – two of the leading authors in the letter to secretary Johnson earlier in the year – issued a statement on Friday, urging the Obama administration to discontinue its fight against the ruling.

“The overwhelming evidence shows that detention facilities are harmful to the health and wellbeing of children, and the facts show that these asylum seekers will show up for their immigration hearings if they are placed in alternatives to jail,” the statement said.