Analysis

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act Will Accelerate the Expansion of Deadly Immigration Detention Facilities. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) is slated for a vote soon after the midterm elections. As written, this bill would pave a path for detention expansion by making immigration detention facilities easier to build and much harder to stop. It would undermine years of work by organizations across the country to protect communities and resist detention expansion, weakening the tools we use to hold immigration agencies accountable.

This resource is part of a series that explores the various avenues for massive detention expansion. Here, we discuss plans to expand ICE detention through Intergovernmental Service Agreements (IGSAs). It is estimated that ICE’s use of county jails since President Trump’s inauguration has at least doubled.

This resource is part of a series that explores the various avenues for massive detention expansion. Here, we discuss plans to expand ICE detention into the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of the Department of Justice (DOJ). Using and recycling federal prisons for ICE detention is not new. It is a continuation of a carceral carousel, the regular cycling of prisons for use by federal, state, and local government agencies.

President Trump is aggressively following through on his campaign promise of mass detention and deportations. Two executive orders issued on day one of Trump’s second administration made clear that detention is a center piece of the mass deportation plans. This resource is part of a series that explores the various avenues for massive detention expansion. Here, we discuss plans to expand ICE detention into US military bases.

For many in the immigrant justice movement, the inauguration of President Joe Biden in 2021 signaled a moment of hope and possibility after four years of a Trump administration that was defined by its cruelty to migrants. Though Biden started his presidential term by rolling back a number of Trump’s cruel immigration policies (while dragging his feet on others) and implementing some modest interior enforcement reforms, over the course of three years his administration has moved increasingly right on these issues.

In October of 2023 President Biden presented Congress with a $106 billion supplemental funding request which included an additional $5.3 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and $2.5 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as military aid to Israel for its genocidal war in Gaza and aid to Ukraine and Taiwan. For the past several months, Congress has been negotiating the President’s request, using immigrant communities as political pawns in the process. Although the request already included billions of dollars in additional funding for border militarization…

Title 42 lifted. Title 8 processing resumed and asylum ban implemented. Enforcement operations ramped up. Anti-immigrant legislation in Congress and the states.

In his second year in office, President Biden continued down an anti-immigrant path set by presidential administrations before him. While the Biden administration ended contracts for several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities and submitted a budget request with a 26% reduction in ICE detention capacity, these victories are attributable to consistent pressure and organizing from community members. Overall, President Biden has widened the enforcement dragnet as detention numbers continued to rise and the number of people surveilled by ICE’s so- called alternatives to…

The history of abuse and negligence inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention is long and well-documented. A growing consensus has emerged among advocates that the system is irreparable, unnecessary, cruel, and racist by design. The only solution is to abolish it. As we work together to achieve a future without immigration detention, Detention Watch Network believes that efforts to end detention must be rooted in abolitionist values to ensure that we do not inadvertently replicate or create new harmful systems. To that end, we created this document to help guide our work.

One year into the Biden administration, Detention Watch Network (DWN) is deeply disappointed by President Biden’s betrayal of his campaign promises to reduce reliance on immigration detention and bring fairness to the immigration system. Instead, he has continued to expand the deadly and inhumane Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention system. After years of unflagging and courageous organizing and advocacy by our communities, last year we celebrated the end of contracts at two ICE jails and an end to detaining families at the three family detention centers. However, the…

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operates a system of approximately 200 immigration jails across the country, depriving thousands of people of their liberty. Over the last three decades, the ICE detention system has grown drastically as Congress has continued to massively fund immigration enforcement agencies and multiple presidential administrations have increased their reliance on detention. During this time, advocates, people in detention, and journalists have documented the extensive history of abuse, neglect, and death inside ICE detention centers, leading to a consensus that…

Under existing federal law, people who are applying for visas or to become lawful permanent residents or citizens already face extreme bars based on interaction with the criminal legal system. If a person has any of a wide range of criminal convictions, arrests, or sometimes even if the government just has “reason to believe” they have committed certain crimes, they are disqualified and are not be allowed to immigrate or to attain status. For example, currently anyone with any drug offense is typically ineligible for a green card, even if they are otherwise entitled to one, as is anyone with…

Regardless of where someone is from or why they migrate to the United States, everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Detention is inhumane, morally and financially costly, and completely unnecessary. Despite efforts to roll back some of the previous administration's cruelest policies, the Biden administration has targeted and detained newly arriving migrants in record numbers. As of July 8, 2021, there are over 27,000 people in detention, up nearly 90 percent from the beginning of the year. The majority of those detained are newly arrived migrants and a significant portion…

Across the country different types of facilities are opening for unaccompanied children arriving at the border. In some instances, local governments are coordinating with federal agencies to use stadiums and convention centers to hold children. In other instances, the administration is using military camps and bases. There are two types of facilities we are currently seeing an expansion of: “influx facilities” and “emergency intake sites.”

On January 26th President Joe Biden signed an executive order to begin phasing out the use of privately operated prisons by the Department of Justice (DOJ), a move that the Obama administration announced near the end of its term but was never realized. While this is a welcome first step, the executive order does not address the use of private detention by the Department of Homeland Security. Extending the order to include DHS should be the next step, but ending the use of private detention alone is not enough. Immigration detention is cruel and unnecessary no matter who owns or operates it.

On February 18, 2021, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tae Johnson issued a memo establishing guidance regarding the interim enforcement and removal guidelines issued by Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary David Pekoske on January 20. This updated guidance significantly broadens the scope of the earlier enforcement priorities issued by DHS, putting many more people at risk of detention and deportation. Detention Watch Network welcomes the Biden administration’s efforts to end the Trump administration’s cruel, xenophobic and racist immigration policies, but…

For the last four years the immigrants’ rights movement has been on the defensive. We focused on organizing and fighting back against Trump’s never-ending attacks against immigrants, including growing the detention system to the largest it has ever been with over 50,000 people caged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the summer of 2019. With the leadership of President Joe Biden, we have an opportunity to advance a new strategy to demand urgent change for a more just and equitable society, including freeing all people from immigration detention. Make no mistake, any actions that…

No matter where someone came from or how they arrived in the United States, their life is of value and worthy of dignity and respect. Fairness, freedom, and opportunity should be at the core of our immigration system, but our existing system does not uphold these values. Instead, people are separated from their loved ones, deprived of their liberty, and lives are put in jeopardy by our punitive border policies. This system relies on deterrence and incarceration to punish people for migration. President Joe Biden must implement border policies that decriminalize migration, demilitarize…