Trump Administration Plans Expanded Immigrant Detention

MAR 3 2017, 9:43 PM ET

Trump Administration Plans Expanded Immigrant Detention, Documents Say

by CHRIS HAYES and BRIAN MONTOPOLI

The Trump administration is planning to radically expand the program and facilities for the detention of immigrant families seeking asylum in the United States, according to documents obtained exclusively by MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes."

In a town hall with Department of Homeland Security staffers last month, Asylum Division Chief John Lafferty said DHS had already located 20,000 beds for the indefinite detention of those seeking asylum, according to notes from the meeting obtained by All In. This would represent a nearly 500 percent increase from current capacity.

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The plan is part of a new set of policies for those apprehended at the border that would make good on President Donald Trump's campaign promise to end the practice critics call "catch and release."

"If implemented, this expansion in immigration detention would be the fastest and largest in our country's history," says Andrew Free, an immigration lawyer in Nashville who represents clients applying for asylum. "And my worry is it'll be permanent. Once those beds are in place they'll never go away."

Reached by phone, Lafferty said he was not authorized to speak on the matter. The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to a request for comment.

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Three men from India jump the fence from Mexico and give themselves up to U.S. border patrol agents in Calexico, Calif. on February 8, 2017. MIKE BLAKE / Reuters

The plans for the expansion reflect the Trump administration's planned overhaul of U.S. policy for dealing women and children seeking asylum, thousands of whom continue to show up at the southern border fleeing violence, vengeance and sexual assault in Central America.

Under the plan under consideration, DHS would break from the current policy keeping families together.

Instead, it would separate women and children after they've been detained — leaving mothers to choose between returning to their country of origin with their children, or being separated from their children while staying in detention to pursue their asylum claim.

"How many human beings can look into the eyes of a mother or child seeking refuge and intentionally create this Sophie's choice?" asks Free.

Related: Trump's Address to Congress Satisfies Immigration Hardliners on the Hill

According to the meeting notes, Lafferty also told staffers that the division has to commit more resources to border detention facilities, that officials plan to oversee facility expansion and the opening of new facilities, and that the division is currently working with Congress to get additional funding to pay for the expansion.

The plan, along with other changes made to immigration policy in the early days of the Trump administration, has caused controversy inside the Asylum Division of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is housed in DHS. A source inside the division, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of losing their job, said, "It's been one alarming thing after another."

The logistics of such a massive expansion of detention capacity could be a challenge. The majority of detention facilities are overseen by the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (recently rebranded as CoreCivic), and conditions in the facilities have been criticized by immigration lawyers as inhumane.

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The largest such facility, the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, has 2,400 detention beds — and a record of lawsuits and complaints of neglect and mistreatment from immigration lawyers. When asked in the town hall about the ability of DHS to quickly build new facilities, Lafferty told the group,

"We got Dilley up and running very quickly," according to the meeting notes. Lafferty said in the meeting that many of the 20,000 beds identified for use for family detention have already been located in existing facilities.

Related: DHS Chief Kelly Pledges 'No Mass Deportations'

According to Texas Monthly, ICE is considering re-opening the controversial vacant detention center in Raymondville, Texas — known as "Ritmo" — which was shut down in 2015 after years of allegations of abuse and poor conditions. That facility was managed by another private prison company, Management and Training Corporation, which told Texas Monthly that ICE "is actively looking for new beds throughout the United States and they have expressed interest" in the facility. It is unclear whether the facility would be used for family detention if it is reopened.

It was precisely such a massive expansion of privately managed immigrant detention that Wall Street investors appeared to anticipate when, upon Trump's election victory, they sent the stock price of several private prison companies, including CCA, surging as high as 60 percent.

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If it is true that the mothers are worried for the lives of their children and their selves they would gladly hand them over to be kept safe. Just my opinion.

We do not want to be taking in children period - trump should use his pen and remove the Wilburforce Act that forces us to take them in.
They are probably unvaccinated, have strains of diseases Americans have not been exposed to, carrying invasive larvae from their trek, drug resistant lice - many Americans will be given the job to take care of them, clean the facility and they will go home to their families, shop in the same supermarket, eat in the same restaurants as us. The Disney Park measels outbreak was blamed on unvaccinated American children but those border kids were "treated" to that park and other parks too. There were reports of an unusual virus that caused serious illnesses, even death to our children and a polio strain not found in US but in central american children - could very well be caused by all this influx of foreign bodies. You just cant have thousands of foreigners move into your country w/o health consequences.

I think most are economic migrants, just looking for a better life. I'm sure they come here with the idea that they can stay, receive government benefits and work.

They have to stay in their own countries and fight for a better life for their people. US is always generous with financial aid but how it is managed is questionable. We cannot continue to take in millions of poor, social services dependent people that will continue to overbreed for free and many will commit violent, heinous crimes. One could probably get an entire history of an American but you have no idea who these people are, what they have done.

Economic migrants are the reason for most of the EU invasion too; some admit it and if they don't get treated like gold they return to iraq or wherever. It just does not work - immigration systems have to be followed for the good of the invaded countries and their citizens not say the password and you are in like flint and everything is free. They somehow have the money to pay thousands to smugglers. The africans have money to pay a smuggler, fly to south america, get hoisted up north thru to our "friends" mexico, say the magic words and they are in. Too much disease comes with the people of these foreign areas.

It is insanity to rectify this as humanitarian - they will destroy this country as we have been seeing - drain our coffers, make us sick too and "demand" schooling, lawyers, refuse to go, avoid hearings. It is an unfunny joke on us.