Biden first ordered separate concentrations of migrant children back at the end of February, when dozens of children were moved to a former oil-worker’s man camp. Child detention rates have expanded far beyond the 700+ reported at that time.
According to a report by CBS, around 3,200 children were being incarcerated in Border Patrol facilities in early March, the highest number ever held at one time by the agency. This record continues to be abused, and today over 4,600 children are detained by the Dept. of Homeland Security migrant policing agency.
Over 14,000 migrant children are reported by the Biden administration as being federally incarcerated under the custody of various agencies.
Numbers of imprisoned minors jumped by over 1,500, between March 1st and March 4th alone, as the Biden administration refused to change their guidelines for child detention.
Excess detainees are given over to the custody of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, who have the lion’s share of child custody at around 9,500. After outcry over the children’s treatment in past days, FEMA was quietly called-in by the Biden office to “expand shelter” – i.e. establish further camp facilities.
Recommended shelter capacity restrictions were lifted on March 5th.
One center in Donna, Texas was grossly overcrowded with over 1,800 people at that time – in a building constructed for 250. Young boys at this prison center have reported, through their lawyers, that they had gone days without seeing the sun.
To draw comparison to Biden’s current policy of child incarceration, Trump’s own records totalled around 4,000 children at a single time in 2019.
Although that was without Biden’s gracious 72-hour CBP child-imprisonment turnover order, which, for many oppressed migrating people, still stretches inexorably on within the incarceration machine of the capitalist state. Which was the whole point of granting custody over to agencies besides CBP.
Today, the average person is detained by Border Patrol for 34 days. Hundreds of children have been imprisoned for more than 10 days at a time.
This incarceration atrocity is on course to worsen immeasurably if the Biden administration maintains its policy of liberal tolerance towards Federal malfeasance.
Year after year, new records are broken by the bloated migration detention system; it hasn’t mattered whether the administration was Democrat or Republican. The needs and the oppressive capacities of the capitalist state and its class sponsors only seem to grow.
As the conditions of capitalism become aggravated, more and more people seek better fortunes for themselves and their children. The crisis of immigration will see no end without the end of the perilous circumstances of the workers of every country. All workers must realize the shared circumstances of their neighbors in other countries in order for them both to defeat the source of their misery: the ruling bourgeoisie.