When families with children are arrested or detained at the border (whether they cross illegally and are caught or whether they cross at a POE and ask for asylum) they can only be detained for 20 days (mas o menos), according to law and a legal settlement (the Flores settlement) from the 1990s that Trump is trying to get overturned. But for now, the government can hold only about 3000 family units in a few special detention centers. When more families keep coming, they have to release them because they do not have space to keep them in detention. They are not releasing them to be reasonable or kind. They are releasing them because they don’t currently have enough detention space. That is why I’ve been harping on the fact that we will be seeing a huge expansion of new detention facilities in the near future.  [See: Prison camps for immigrant families ]

It is important to note that SINGLE men and women are still being detained.  I worked recently with a boy from Guatemala who was 18 when he crossed the border. He applied for asylum and he has been detained since Dec 2017 in Otero. He lost his case last week and he is still detained and will soon be deported. He decided not to appeal his case because he could not stand being locked up any longer. It will probably be close to a year in the prison for him before he is deported back to the life-threatening situation he left. I know many people in detention here who spend more than a year detained. Some even win their cases and are released, sometimes after more than two years imprisoned.

While families and children get most of the media attention, there are still tens of thousands of adults detained for these long periods and many have horrific asylum claims and they still lose and get deported. I know another man who has been detained at Otero since September 2016–more than 2 years. He is from Venezuela and presented himself for asylum at the El Paso POE. He did not commit any crime or any kind of illegal crossing. He lost his asylum case, but he has kept fighting through appeals–after more than two years behind razor wire in the Otero County, New Mexico detention center.

There is certainly some truth to what is said that people come with their children because they think it will keep them from long term detention. At least for now, it is true. But this government will not allow the situation to continue. They will either try to keep the people from crossing, or they will drastically increase long-term detention capacity… or both.  These things are already underway…

There was a good piece on NPR this week that at least mentioned this difference…a couple of excerpts are posted below.

BURNETT: Well, a Homeland Security spokesperson told me that they’re compiling the year-end figures right now, and she says the numbers of immigrant families arriving at the border will likely break records on a monthly basis. Now, it’s important to keep this in context, Mary Louise, because back in 2000, they were arresting 1 1/2 million undocumented immigrants a year. So far this year, it’s been under 400,000. But still the Trump administration is upset and frustrated. They continue to blame everything on Congress for allowing what they call catch and release loopholes in the law. The DHS spokesman told me that the agency is examining all options to secure the border.

….

But if they put it into practice, the question is, where would they detain all these families? Currently there are a little over 3,000 spots for family members in what are called special family residential centers. But you’re talking about thousands of these immigrant families that are arrested every week at the Southwest border these days. The government doesn’t have enough detention beds. So for the foreseeable future, you’ll see the continuation of families being arrested. They’re processed for a few days. And then most are released with ankle monitors with their kids to show up for immigration court. And that’s what’s been bedeviling the Trump administration all along.