Dilley, Texas – Yesterday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that the South Texas Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas, commonly referred to as “Dilley,” will close. Advocates who have long called out the rampant abuse at Dilley are frustrated that the motive to close Dilley is to expand detention elsewhere. The administration plans to increase immigration detention by an estimated 1,600 detention beds. Let us be clear: Whenever people are in ICE custody, lives are in jeopardy.
This announcement comes in coordination with a broader anti-immigrant strategy and affirms how Biden continues to execute a right-wing agenda, not just in rhetoric, but also in policy – including his executive order that will temporarily shut down the Southern border to people seeking asylum, the Department of Justice’s plan to increase immigration-related prosecutions at the border, ICE’s desire to massively increase immigration detention both at the border and throughout the country with a “Multi-State Detention Facility Support” Request for Information, and Biden’s plans to ramp up deportations. ICE is yet again appealing to Congress for more funds on top of its already astronomical budget of $8.4 billion to detain and deport even more people, tearing apart families and communities.
Immigrant justice advocates issued the following comments:
Allison Herre, Team Manager for the Asylum Defense Project (formerly CARA/Proyecto Dilley), said: “While closing the detention center in Dilley is welcome news, it cannot undo the emotional and physical scars that mark the tens of thousands of asylum-seeking women, children, and men who have been held there over the last decade. Nor does the announcement promise a disruption of the wholesale detention of our asylum-seeking clients. Whether it is women and their children or single adults, immigrant detention is inhumane and strips asylum seekers of dignity. It is a shameful practice that is incompatible with a humanitarian asylum system.”
Becca Asaki, Director of Organizing at Tsuru for Solidarity, said: “As Japanese Americans whose families were incarcerated in concentration camps during WWII, we were among those who spoke out against the use of sites like Dilley to incarcerate families and lamented the re-appropriation of the site to incarcerate adults knowing the intergenerational impact of detention on communities and families. It is abhorrent that the Biden Administration is now announcing the closure of Dilley as a means to expand detention elsewhere. Like the concentration camps that held our families, detention sites like Dilley must be shut down permanently, all those incarcerated released, and the billions of dollars currently used to torture and incarcerate people reallocated into healthcare, education, housing and other supports for communities.”
Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network, said: “ICE’s announcement to close Dilley as a means to increase detention capacity elsewhere is shameful. The continued focus on punishing people who migrate for the simple act of moving for a new, better, or safer life is not only cruel, it is ineffective and fuels our country’s reliance on mass incarceration. Dilley must close outright with the release of everyone currently detained and without detention expansion t elsewhere. Instead of spending billions of dollars on detaining immigrants and failed deterrence strategies at the border, the government should simplify the immigration process by allowing people to be with their loved ones and work upon arrival. Our tax dollars should be invested in healthcare programs, affordable housing at all levels, and education to support communities nationwide.”
About Dilley:
Dilley was one of four family detention centers opened by President Obama when his administration dramatically expanded family detention in 2014. The Trump administration continued to use Dilley to further expand the use of family detention and family separation. In a step welcomed by advocates, the Biden administration stopped detaining families in December 2021. However, ICE did not terminate its long-standing contract with the facility. Instead, the South Texas Family Residential Center began detaining single adults. When at capacity, the South Texas Family Residential Center was the largest detention center in the United States.
While in operation for family detention, there were reports of foul water and negligent medical treatment, with hospitals confirming that children are consistently released with health issues they dubbed “Dilley-ish.” In 2018, a 19-month old girl, Mariee, tragically died after leaving the facility and in 2019, a guard was accused of physically assaulting a 5-year-old.
###
Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.