The Biden administration will transform two Texas facilities where detained migrant families are held into Ellis Island-style rapid processing centers, meaning adults and children who cross the border will be housed for a maximum of 72 hours before being released into the U.S.
In a court filing Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said families will continue to be detained at a 2,400-bed detention center in Karnes City and an 839-bed detention center in Dilley in Texas, but the U.S. government intends to hold adults and children at those sites for three days or less.
Migrant families previously held at a third facility, the 96-bed Berks County family detention center in Leesport, Pa., have all been released, according the ICE disclosure made Friday in the decades-old Flores lawsuit filed on behalf of migrant children. That detention center will instead be used by ICE to hold adults.
All three family detention centers opened when now-President Biden was vice president to President Barack Obama. While running for president, Biden pledged to release detained families.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has preliminary plans to transform the two facilities in southern Texas into rapid processing centers aimed at screening 100 families per day, The Washington Post first reported, citing internal emails outlining the previously unpublicized changes. – READ MORE
Listen to the insightful Thomas Paine Podcast Below --