The Trump administration is reopening a large detention center in South Texas for migrant families facing deportation, resuming the detention of children four years after the Biden administration ended it. CoreCivic, Inc. said it had reached an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reactivate the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley Tex., with room for up to 2,400 parents and children, making it one of the largest centers in ICE’s portfolio, the Washington Post reports. Annual revenue from the facility is expected to be $180 million, including medical services. CoreCivic spokesman Steve Owen said, “It’s our understanding that this will be housing families again. It’s a family residential center.”
Restarting family detention is a blow to advocates for immigrants who battled for years to end it, saying it was inhumane to detain children and teens against their will. It expands the Trump administration’s detention capacity as it attempts to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in history. The agency is unlikely to meet the president’s goal of deporting millions. Trump has modeled his deportations after an Eisenhower operation known as “Operation Wetback,” a slur for Mexican migrants. That military-style operation rounded up and removed migrant workers, sometimes in dangerous conditions that led to deaths. The specter of the Trump administration resuming detention of migrant children — after forcibly separating migrant families at the southern border during his first term — alarmed advocacy organizations. Though a court order bars the administration from separating families again, Trump officials have said they hope to deport them together.