How the US Built the World’s Largest Immigration Detention System

The Guardian and The Marshall Project jointly produced a series of videos with former immigration officials, legal advocates, and victims of Trump’s family separation policy that provides a thorough explanation of how our country went from detaining fewer than 3,000 immigrants on any given day in the 1970s to more than 50,000 today. Although the growth of immigration detention is not new to the Trump administration, as the explainer notes, it has grown by more than 40% since Trump took office in 2017. At the same time, Congress has made it clear to the Trump administration that it wants DHS to decrease immigration detention. However, DHS continues to overspend well beyond Congressionally appropriated limits and is advocating for even more and longer detention of families and children. All this despite multiple governmental and non-governmental reports of inhumane detention conditions.           

KJ