Detention

The U.S. immigration system is complex and can be difficult to understand. These resources provide key data points, historical information, and background on hot topics in immigration. Learn the basics about immigration.

Recent Features

All Detention Content

June 24, 2015

Earlier this week, eight Democratic House Members took a trip to Dilley and Karnes, Texas to visit two immigrant family detention facilities and meet with women and children detained there. Dozens...

June 10, 2015

Every day, over a thousand individuals are held in Border Patrol detention facilities near the U.S. southern border. These facilities are notorious for freezing cold temperatures, overcrowded...

June 2, 2015

Over the past year, the Obama Administration has rapidly propped up family detention facilities as a knee-jerk response to the influx of women and children who crossed our southern border last...

May 14, 2015

In February, advocates went to court to argue that the government’s family detention centers violate the long-standing Flores v. Reno settlement agreement, which set minimum standards for the...

May 13, 2015

By Karen Lucas, Legislative Associate at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and Beth Werlin, Policy Director at the American Immigration Council. On Mother’s Day morning, we said...

May 8, 2015

In 2009, the Obama Administration ended family detention at the infamous T. Don Hutto jail in Texas and cut the number of immigrants in family detention to less than a hundred. However, after the...

April 27, 2015

Estrella is a four-year-old girl who has been locked-up in U.S. detention centers for over eight months or one fifth of her life. She is chronically ill and has been hospitalized for acute...

April 22, 2015

Since 2009, Congress has instructed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to maintain 34,000 beds in immigrant detention facilities across the country, a policy known as “the bed...

February 9, 2015

The New York Times details the government’s dangerous and expanding practice of detaining women and children who have recently crossed our southwest border in the magazine’s cover story this...

January 30, 2015

When the family detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, was hastily propped up by the U.S. government in order to detain and rapidly process women and children for deportation, immigration rights...

September 21, 2018
Yesterday, plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the U.S. government’s targeted efforts to obstruct asylum seekers filed a motion for preliminary injunction demanding timely bond hearings that comport with due process.
September 18, 2018

The American Immigration Council and American Immigration Lawyers Association submitted a written statement to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and...

September 14, 2018

As Hurricane Florence pummels the southeastern United States, newly released Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents show that a total of $200 million—including $10 million from the...

September 6, 2018

The Trump administration is proposing new regulations to indefinitely detain immigrant children at the border and keep them in unsafe conditions, creating a false choice between separating...

September 6, 2018
The Trump administration proposed new regulations that could lead to the indefinite detention—and needless suffering—of asylum-seeking children.
Publication Date: 
September 6, 2018
The Legal Orientation Program (LOP) offers legal education, as well as referrals for free and low-cost legal counsel, to noncitizens in immigration detention.
August 30, 2018

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) currently uses hundreds of detention centers throughout the country to hold individuals in immigration proceedings. Many of these facilities have a...

August 24, 2018

Earlier this year, the Trump administration launched its “zero tolerance” policy, aimed at punishing immigrants, including asylum seekers, who enter the United States without authorization. Among...

August 23, 2018

In all the chaos of family separation, another disturbing detail has come to light: immigration officials may have coerced vulnerable parents into signing away their right to be reunified with...

August 23, 2018
The complaint points to numerous examples, including that of Mrs. D.P., who was separated from her 9-year-old daughter for 47 days as a result of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' "zero-tolerance" border policy.

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