Trump administration to release hundreds of immigrant families from detention
But with border nonprofits already stretched to capacity, many families will probably end up dropped off en masse at bus stations.
Hundreds, or even thousands, of migrant families are set to be released from government detention along the US-Mexico border over the next several days. But while the mass release of families may cheer critics of the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrant families, the government’s new plan will probably lead to hundreds of families getting dropped off en masse at bus stations — literally out in the cold.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that’s generally responsible for immigrant detention, has already started mass releases of hundreds of families a day.
But in a break with standard policy, US Border Patrol has developed a plan to release some families directly if they’ve been held for more than a few days — instead of holding all families for ICE to pick up.
Plans for Border Patrol to release families directly were confirmed to Vox by two officials with knowledge of the mass-release operation. The sources said that releases from both ICE and Border Patrol could start as soon as Thursday and are expected to last for a few days — with hundreds of families a day set to be released in the Rio Grande Valley and around El Paso.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Katie Waldman, did not confirm any plan to release families directly from Border Patrol custody.
However, in a statement, Waldman partly blamed a 2015 ruling extending legal protections to children who arrived with parents in the US — including requiring Border Patrol to keep them in custody for no more than 72 hours — for causing the current “immigration crisis”, saying it “incentivizes illegal alien adults to put their children in the hands of smugglers and traffickers” and “rewards parents for bringing their children with them to the United States.”
Releasing families who’ve entered the US without papers from detention is the exact outcome the Trump administration has spent all of 2018 deriding as “catch and release,” and which it has rolled out a series of policy initiatives — “zero tolerance” prosecution and widespread family separation, regulatory efforts to keep families in detention until they’re deported, the “asylum ban” now blocked in the courts, a not-yet-implemented plan to force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico — to prevent.
But the system for apprehending and detaining children and families is in crisis — and the consequences have been deadly.
Two children have died in the past month in Border Patrol custody in New Mexico, the area of the border where the US government has been most overwhelmed by unprecedented numbers of families crossing into the country. Felipe Alonzo-Gomez, who died in a New Mexico hospital just after midnight on Christmas Day, had been in Border Patrol custody for six days — a violation of both agency policy and the Flores settlement that governs the treatment of children in immigration custody — and had been shuffled among four different facilities.
Amid growing scrutiny of Border Patrol detention conditions, the new release plan may seem welcome to Trump critics. But that raises the question of where all those newly released families will go; who will help them adjust to life in the United States; and how they will get to where they need to go while awaiting their immigration court hearings.
Normally, local nonprofits take care of families after release at the border. But it’s not at all clear that local nonprofits have the capacity to care for hundreds more families — the lead nonprofit in El Paso, Annunciation House, was stretched beyond capacity even before ICE started releasing hundreds of families in the area earlier this week. And in some sectors, the government doesn’t even have a relationship with a local nonprofit that it can notify before dropping off families.
That means families who have no knowledge of the US might be getting dumped en masse at bus stations in the middle of winter, many without winter clothing and all without guidance about what to do next.
Officials and nonprofits alike at the border are being asked to do something they have never had to do before: take care of tens of thousands of migrant families coming in a month, often in large groups and often in remote areas. President Trump’s constant stoking of panic about immigrants coming into the US to commit crimes has overshadowed a real crisis at the border over the past several months — a crisis of resources. Unprecedented numbers of families are coming into the US without papers, and no one has the capacity to deal with them humanely.
A 17-year-old male Mexican national allegedly assaulted a Border Patrol agent near Vamori in Pima County, Arizona, not far from the Mexican border. This is the third reported attack against agent in Arizona this week.
The agent, a supervisor, was working alone and was assaulted on Thanksgiving Day evening, according to information provided to Breitbart Texas by U.S. Border Patrol officials. He was south of Sells, Arizona, when he confronted three male Mexican citizens. One became aggressive. The agent was forced to use pepper spray to facilitate the arrest.
The agent arrested all three Mexican nationals. The 17-year-old is facing a charge of assaulting a federal agent.
Breitbart Texas reported on Wednesday that U.S. Border Patrol officials from the Tucson Sector relayed that agents encountered a large group of suspected illegal aliens in the Baboquivari Mountain Range near Three Points. As one of the agents attempted to arrest the subjects, one illegal alien became assaultive. The agent discharged his service-issued sidearm striking the foreign national. The suspect died, and agents arrested three of the illegal immigrants but the others escaped. The incident occurred just after noon on Wednesday.
During a press conference on Thursday morning, Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent Rodolfo Karisch told reporters two agents were involved in the incident, AZCentral reported. “The assailant wound up on top of the agent and was able to pull his weapon from his holster, at which time the other agent came up and shot the individual,” Karisch explained.
Three of the illegal aliens traveled to Arizona from Guatemala. It has not yet been reported where the deceased person is from or what role he played in the group. They have been arrested on immigration charges.
On November 21, an illegal alien from Mexico assaulted a border patrol agent assigned to the Tucson Sector. Breitbart Texas reported that the agent came upon a group of suspected illegal immigrants immediately north of the border between Mexico and Arizona. The agent attempted to arrest a 22-year-old Mexican national, but the young male resisted and threw dirt in the agent’s face.
Breitbart Texas reported on Saturday that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California refused to prosecute a Mexican national after his alleged assault on an agent put the agent in the hospital for head injuries. The Border Patrol agent received a concussion after being struck in the head by flying metal after the illegal immigrant plowed through a road sign while allegedly bypassing a checkpoint during a human smuggling run, Breitbart Texas reported last Friday. Breitbart Texas reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego for an explanation about the lack of charges. A cryptic response said the DOJ might be considering prosecution.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) responded that it does not specifically track the prosecution of illegal aliens that assault Border Patrol agents.
DOJ officials said their department has prosecuted 428 people for assaulting federal law enforcement officials. The number of prosecutions is up from 376 in 2016 and 336 in 2015.
During the first 11 months of FY 2017, which ended on October 1, 671 Border Patrol agents have been assaulted in the performance of their duty, Breitbart Texas reported in September. This number represents a 67 percent increase over the same period in FY 2016. Final numbers for FY 2017 have not yet been released.
