Finally, Some Good News for Families That Fled Violence and Poverty in Central America

Long-term immigration detention of mothers and children could be a thing of the past.

Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


For months at a time, desperate Central American mothers and their children seeking asylum in the United States encounter little access to legal counsel, inadequate health care, and even alleged extortion and sexual assault by guards in detention facilities.

On Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson offered some hope, announcing reforms that could allow the release of hundreds of women and children on bond if they’ve successfully shown a “credible or reasonable” reason for seeking relief.

The changes came a week after Johnson visited a detention center in Karnes City, Texas, one of three facilities that house families that have illegally crossed into the United States from places like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. On a recent trip with other House Democrats, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) described it as a “jail camp.” In late May, Lofgren et al. wrote a letter to Johnson calling for an end to family detention facilities.

“In short, once a family has established eligibility for asylum or other relief under our laws, long-term detention is an inefficient use of our resources and should be discontinued,” Johnson said in a statement.

What exactly do the changes look like?

  • First, families that have established a “credible or reasonable fear of persecution” would be released on bond or other conditions of release. Mothers must already undergo a credible-fear interview to see whether their families qualify for asylum in the United States. The amount of the bond would depend on the migrants’ ability to pay and the risks surrounding the family, according to Johnson. According to Cecillia Wang, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, bond amounts have varied wildly, leaving some families unable to make payments. 
  • US Citizenship and Immigration Services will also expedite the interview process for currently detained families to reduce detention time. USCIS data showed that 88 percent of recently detained families have showed a “credible fear of persecution” if deported. Families that fail to prove they had a claim for relief would continue to be detained.

As Mother Jones has previously reported, the number of women detained with their children nearly quadrupled between 2013 and 2014, as more and more people have fled Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle to escape violence and poverty. Immigration activists point to both the high financial cost of housing these families ($343 per day for each detainee in a family unit) and the psychological toll such detention can have on families as reasons for shuttering centers completely.

In May, USCIS discontinued using “general deterrence” as a factor in detaining families at the residential centers. A lawsuit filed by the ACLU in December highlighted a no-release policy the government used for keeping women and children detained even after passing credible-fear interviews.

Shelly Pitterman, head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ office in Washington, DC, said in a statement the Obama administration’s actions were a “step in the right direction.” The agency found that the number of people seeking asylum from Mexico and Central America jumped 1,200 percent between 2008 and 2014.

Wang agreed with Pitterman, but insisted the measures did not go far enough. “They need to end family detention altogether,” Wang said Wednesday. “We should not be locking up children.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate