Trump Administration Migrant Detentions
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The Trump administration has detained migrants attempting to enter the United States at the
United States–Mexico border United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...
. Government reports from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General in May 2019 and July 2019 found that migrants had been detained under conditions that failed federal standards. These conditions have included prolonged detention, overcrowding, and poor hygiene and food standards. The United States has a history of detaining migrants from Central America since the 1970s under the
presidency of Jimmy Carter Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, took office following his narrow victory over Republican incu ...
, with boat migrations from the Caribbean resulting in detentions from the 1980s onwards, under the
presidency of Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following his landslide victory over ...
. Since the 2000s, prosecutions of migrants who illegally crossed the border became a priority under the
presidency of George W. Bush George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following his narrow electoral college victo ...
and the
presidency of Barack Obama Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office following his victory over Republican nomine ...
. The Trump administration took a stricter approach than did previous administrations regarding migrant detentions, allowing no exemptions for detention, unlike the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.


Background

Statistics from the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. It is the country's primary border control organization, charged with regulating and facilita ...
(CBP) showed that the number of migrants detained at the United States-Mexico border in 2017's financial year was around 300,000, the lowest number since 1971. In 2018's financial year the number was around 400,000. From the financial years of 2000 to 2008, the number was always higher than 600,000, with the highest being in 2000's financial year, with over 1.6 million migrants detained. From the financial years of 2009 to 2018, the number was always lower than 600,000. Reasons for migrants to enter the United States include escaping violence and poverty in their country. The responsibility for long-term detention of migrants falls under the purview of
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the Un ...
, not CBP. Improper entry into the United States can result in a federal jail sentence of up to 180 days. Repeat offenders can be jailed up to two years, with extra years added if such a migrant has previous criminal convictions. At the time of the Trump administration, the state of immigration laws of the United States gives the executive branch significant leeway to decide which immigrants can be detained or released pending their hearings.


History of immigration to the United States

The United States has been described by many as a "nation of immigrants", but has not always treated immigrants well historically: for example, from 1790 to 1952, American law restricted
naturalization Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...
to white immigrants. Around the 1910s (with the occurrence of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
),
Ellis Island Ellis Island is an island in New York Harbor, within the U.S. states of New Jersey and New York (state), New York. Owned by the U.S. government, Ellis Island was once the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United State ...
, formerly an immigration conduit for migrants arriving by sea, became a detention and deportation center for migrants. Immigration from Mexico was nearly unrestricted in the United States until the late 1920s. Despite American nativist and xenophobic sentiments since the 1880s that Mexicans were of an inferior race, the need for labor temporarily trumped that sentiment. In 1929, the United States passed Section 1325 of
Title 8 of the United States Code Title 8 of the United States Code codifies statutes relating to aliens and nationality in the United States Code. Chapters 1-11 * : General Provisions (repealed or omitted) * : Elective Franchise (transferred) * : Civil Rights (transferred/r ...
, that made crossing the U.S.-Mexican border without authorization a federal crime. Also, 1929's stock market crash and increasing unemployment led to "repatriation drives" by local and federal officials, active campaigns and raids through the 1930s by Americans that resulted in hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants being deported, even if many (and their children) were by that time American citizens or had entered the U.S. legally. The post-World War II
Bracero Program The Bracero Program (from the Spanish term ''bracero'' , meaning " manual laborer" or "one who works using his arms") was a temporary labor initiative between the United States and Mexico that allowed Mexican workers to be employed in the U.S. ...
of 1944 to 1964 allowed for legal immigration from Mexico as laborers, but resulted in an increase in illegal immigration. As such, 1954's
Operation Wetback Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph May Swing, Joseph Swing, a retired United States Army lieutenant general (United States), lieutenant general and head of the United States Immigration and Naturaliza ...
to deport millions of illegal immigrants coming from Mexico was enacted, with periodic deportation drives continuing in the years ahead. The
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, was a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ...
resulted in the establishment of a quota for immigration to the U.S. from the Western Hemisphere, which resulted in an increase in illegal immigration from Mexico. Expanding agricultural and service sectors in the United States spurred even higher illegal immigration from Mexico and other countries of the Western Hemisphere in the 1980s and 1990s.


Trump administration actions

In January 2017, Trump declared that 11 million immigrants in the United States would be targeted for detentions and deportation, including legal migrants who had previously committed a crime but not been arrested. In January 2019, Trump made 8 claims in 12 days that human traffickers transport women across the Mexico-U.S. border by putting them in vehicles and taping their mouths. He said that this was a common scenario, but experts attested no knowledge of such matters occurring. There have also been no news reports of such matters. After Trump made these claims, Border Patrol leadership asked their agents to speedily provide "any information" on Trump's claims. Also in January 2019, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders falsely stated that CBP had apprehended almost 4,000 known or suspected terrorists "that came across our southern border." 3,755 known or suspected terrorists were indeed apprehended in the fiscal year of 2017, but this included those who entered from airports and seaports (the majority of those apprehended were at airports). NBC News reported that from October 2017 to March 2018, the Trump administration only apprehended 41 known or suspected terrorists at the southern border, of which 35 were American citizens or lawful permanent residents. In 2017, the State Department had reported that there is "no credible evidence terrorist groups sent operatives via Mexico into the United States". Questioned on Sanders' false claims, Vice President Mike Pence said that "3,000 special interest individuals, people with suspicious backgrounds that might suggest terrorist connections were apprehended at our southern border". Homeland Security Secretary
Kirstjen Nielsen Kirstjen Michele Nielsen (; born May 14, 1972) is an American attorney who served as United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019. She is a former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, principal White House deputy chief of staff ...
made a similar claim. However, special interest aliens refer to people coming from a country that has produced terrorists – special interest aliens not necessarily suspected terrorists themselves. In February 2019, Trump declared a
National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States The National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States (Proclamation 9844) was declared on February 15, 2019, by United States president Donald Trump during his first administration. Citing the National Emergencies Act, it o ...
, attributing it to an influx of migrants who would commit criminal activities in the United States. Maria Sacchetti of ''The Washington Post'' responded that in that month, more than 60% of the immigrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have no criminal history. In June 2019, the
United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...
passed 84–8 a bipartisan bill providing around $4.6 billion of funds, including $1.1 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to improve facilities and care for migrants, and around $2.9 billion for
United States Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...
to improve conditions for migrant children in their case. Also that month, the
United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...
passed 305–102 the same version of the bill as the Senate, despite objections from Democrats wanting more protections for migrant children and more means to ensure accountability for the funds.


Comparison with past administrations

Professor Kevin Johnson, writing in the '' Santa Clara Law Review'' in 2017, described that defenders of the Trump administration's immigration policies have claimed that the policies were a continuation of the previous administration's policies under Barack Obama. Johnson refuted this by asserting that the Trump administration's policies "differ in important respects" from the Obama administration's. Immigration policies under Obama featured both "tough enforcement" and some "generosity". Trump has employed "systematic efforts to dramatically escalate immigration enforcement", while his administration has reduced or possibly removed "more generous treatment of immigrants subject to possible removal from the United States". Professor Johnson and Professor Rose Cuison-Villazor wrote for '' Wake Forest Law Review'' in May 2019 that the Trump administration's immigration policies are "tougher" than that of previous administrations under "any modern president". While the Reagan and Obama administrations employed detention of migrants, the Trump administration had mandatory detention, and "no previous administration resorted to the separation of families as a device to deter migration from Central America". Rebecca Torres, published in 2018's '' Gender, Place & Culture'', described that the Trump administration is "the most anti-refugee" and anti-immigrant administration "in recent U.S. history", with an increase in immigrant detentions and "unprecedented" actions taken against refugees and immigrants. It followed the Obama administration, which had featured a record number of deportations, as well as policies aimed at deterring Latin Americans from moving to the United States. Robert Farley, Eugene Kiely and Lori Robertson of '' Factcheck.org'' responded to an April 2018 claim by President Trump that there were "ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release". They wrote that Trump's claim "distorts the facts". There were no laws instituted to mandate the practice of catch and release (which releases some migrants into the United States pending their immigration hearings, instead of detaining them), however, it was indeed a policy under previous administrations, due to exemptions to detention granted to certain children, families and asylum seekers. Under the Clinton administration in 1997, the legal case of the Flores Settlement Agreement resulted in the policy that unaccompanied migrant minors can only be detained for a maximum of 20 days before release. Under the Obama administration in 2015, a federal judge ruled that families with minors must be released as soon as possible. Additionally, migrants applying for asylum may also be released from detention under "humanitarian parole". However, other than these exemptions, the George W. Bush administration instituted a policy in 2006 that all other illegal immigrants crossing the border are to be detained until deportation, which was also continued under the Obama administration. As covered by D'Angelo Gore of ''Factcheck.org'' in May 2018, President Trump falsely claimed that family separations with adult detentions were because of "bad laws that the Democrats gave us." In fact, it was Trump's own administration who that month instituted the policy of zero tolerance resulting in family separations, because the George W. Bush and Obama administrations detained families together. Gore noted that in 2008, George W. Bush, a Republican president, signed a bipartisan bill, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, mandating that unaccompanied migrant minors must be passed to American relatives or the Office of Refugee Resettlement, but this law does not mandate family separations, as the migrant parents are not required to be detained when their children are released. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' wrote in June 2018 that the two administrations before Trump's, which were those of
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...
and
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
, did not "embrace" detaining migrant families separately, unlike the Trump administration. George W. Bush's administration had in 2005 implemented
Operation Streamline Operation Streamline is a joint initiative of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice in the United States, started in 2005, that adopts a "zero-tolerance" approach to unauthorized border-crossing by criminally prosecuting t ...
in parts of Texas, which would imprison and prosecute all illegal immigrants entering the country, with an eye for quick deportations. However, they also wrote that the George W. Bush administration "generally" allowed exemptions for children, families with minor children, as well as ill migrants. The Obama administration at one point reenacted Operation Streamline, but without prioritizing first-time illegal immigrants, and it detained families together in administrative detention, not criminal detention. Miriam Valverde of
Politifact PolitiFact.com is an American nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, with offices there and in Washington, D.C. It began in 2007 as a project of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' (then the ''St. Petersburg Times ...
assessed in November 2018 that Trump had falsely claimed that the Trump administration "had the exact same policy as the Obama administration" for family separations with adult prosecutions. There was no such policy under the Obama administration, whereas the Trump administration had the zero tolerance policy resulting in family separations. Although there were indeed some family separations under the Obama administration, Valvarde wrote that they were "relatively rare and nowhere near the scale under the Trump administration". Judith Greene, stated in 2018's ''
Social Justice Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...
'' that the Trump administration was no longer implementing "national detention standards" established in 2000 (under the Clinton administration) and improved upon by the Obama administration. Jenna Loyd and Alison Mountz, writing in March 2019 for the ''
NACLA Report on the Americas ''NACLA Report on the Americas'' is a political magazine produced by the North American Congress on Latin America. History The North American Congress on Latin America was founded in November 1966 by leaders of the New Left movement to anal ...
'', state that the United States has "the world's largest system of deterrence, detention, and deportation", and that the Trump administration's immigration policies have "roots" leading back to the 1970s. The Carter administration detained migrants from Haiti in jails, while the Reagan administration "cemented and expanded" such methods to boat migrations arising from the Caribbean (including Cuba), a policy which remained even into the Trump administration. The Clinton administration held Haitian migrants seeking asylum in tents at
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo as jargon by the U.S. military) is a United States military base located on of land and water on the shore of Guant ...
. Under the administration of
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...
, migrants from Guatemala and El Salvador were given
Temporary Protected Status Temporary protected status (TPS) is given by the United States government to eligible nationals of designated countries, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security, who are present in the United States. In general, the Secretary of Hom ...
, but under the Trump administration, such statuses were revoked for Haitians and people of other countries. Furthermore, the Trump administration has taken extra steps in attempting to remove processes for legal asylum claims via changing procedures of the Executive Office of Immigration Review. Bea Bischoff of ''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
'' wrote in June 2019 that "many of the current immigration enforcement actions that are receiving criticism under Trump were in place during the Obama administration." However, Bischoff wrote that the Trump administration's "policy changes and focus" on maximum deportations exacerbated the problem and resulted in "all-out chaos". Leandra H. Hernández and Sarah De Los Santos Upton, in a July 2019 article for '' Frontiers in Communication'', state that immigrants in the United States face "an ever more dismal horizon of rightlessness": the "immigration violation excesses" of the George W. Bush administration was continued by more "aggressive" border enforcement under the Obama administration, culminating in the Trump administration's detainment of children, family separations, and sexual abuses of migrant women and children. Ricciardelli et al., writing for ''Critical Social Work'' in July 2019, describe that the Obama administration already "heightened" the usage of detention and deportations for migrants, but then the Trump administration took it to a "considerably" higher level.


Funding

On July 29, 2018, it was reported that the pension funds of Scotland's
public service A public service or service of general (economic) interest is any service intended to address the needs of aggregate members of a community, whether provided directly by a public sector agency, via public financing available to private busin ...
workers managed by finance firms,
GEO Group The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is a publicly traded C corporation headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities in the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The company ...
and
CoreCivic CoreCivic, Inc. formerly the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is a company that owns and manages private prisons and detention centers and operates others on a concession basis. Co-founded in 1983 in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas W. B ...
held at least £138 million in investment firms backing the detention centres. Upon this being known it was heavily criticised.
Willie Rennie William Cowan Rennie (born 27 September 1967) is a Scottish politician who served as the Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats from 2011 to 2021. He has served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for North East Fife since 2016, ...
, leader of the
Scottish Liberal Democrats The Scottish Liberal Democrats () is a liberal, federalist political party in Scotland, part of UK Liberal Democrats. The party holds 5 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, 6 of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons and 86 of 1 ...
said that: "The managers of these funds must think extremely carefully about who they hand their money to. Pension provision should not come at the expense of a system of abuse". Dave Watson, head of policy and public affairs at the Unison union, said: "Scottish local government pension funds need to do more to support ethical investment than bland policy statements. They need to look harder at where the money is going, including pooled that can mask bad practice. The workers who contribute to their pension funds expect their hard-earned contributions to be invested responsibly, in line with the values they live and work by." The Geo Group and Corecivic had previously donated $250,000 to Trump's inaugural committee. The GEO Group is currently being sued for alleged use of forced labour. On August 27, 2019, it was announced that the government would move $271 million (~$ in ) in funds from the
Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...
to pay for migrant detention and courts. This decision was criticsed by
U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
Lucille Roybal-Allard Lucille Elsa Roybal-Allard (born June 12, 1941) is an American politician who served as a United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative from California from 1993 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ...
who said in a statement that: "Once again, DHS has ignored the negotiated agreement with Congress by vastly exceeding the amount appropriated for immigration enforcement and removal operations".
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
Speaker
Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi ( ; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who was the List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 52nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving from 2007 to 2011 an ...
also criticised it, saying that: "Stealing from appropriated funds is always unacceptable, but to pick the pockets of disaster relief funding in order to fund an appalling, inhumane family incarceration plan is staggering – and to do so on the eve of hurricane season is stunningly reckless". In 2019
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
appropriated $2.8 billion (~$ in ) to pay for 52,000 beds.


Family separations

The Trump administration has separately detained migrant families, with adults being separated into criminal detention for prosecution, while the children were treated as unaccompanied alien minors. On May 5, 2019, the Trump administration officially began a "
zero tolerance A zero-tolerance policy is one which imposes a punishment for every infraction of a stated rule.zero tolerance, n.' (under ''zero, n.''). The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Ed. 1989. Retrieved 10 November 2009. Italy, Japan, Singapore China, I ...
" policy towards illegal immigration, declaring that it would detain and prosecute every illegal immigrant, in contrast to a common previous practice (
catch and release Catch and release is a practice within recreational fishing where after capture the fish is Fish hook, unhooked and returned live to the water. Originally adopted in the United Kingdom by Coarse fishing, coarse fishermen to Overfishing, preser ...
) of releasing migrants into the country while their immigration cases were processed. On June 20, 2019, President Trump issued an executive order that migrant families should be detained together; at that time, families were only supposed to be detained for a maximum of 20 days.


Legal cases

In April 2018, a lawsuit was filed by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law which alleged that migrant children detained at Texas' Shiloh Treatment Center were forcibly medicated with several psychotropic drugs. In July 2018, a federal judge from the
United States District Court for the Central District of California The United States District Court for the Central District of California (in case citations, C.D. Cal.; commonly referred to as the CDCA or CACD) is a United States district court, federal trial court that serves over 19 million people in South ...
refused the Trump administration's request to change the Flores settlement and extend the allowed detention time of migrant children from 20 days to indefinite. In June 2019, Trump administration official Sarah Fabian argued (in an appeal to a July 2017 verdict) that the ''Flores agreement'' mandating "safe and sanitary" conditions for detained migrant children was "vague" and it was not compulsory for the government to provide toothbrushes, soap or adequate bedding to them.


Deaths

From December 2018 to July 2019, at least six child migrants have died while being detained by the Trump administration.


Facilities

Cecilia Ayón, writing for '' Race and Social Problems'', stated that the 2018 family separation policy, followed by the 2018 executive order to detain families together, "occurred on the heels of a booming growth in private detention facilities." For the financial year of 2017, two businesses (
CoreCivic CoreCivic, Inc. formerly the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is a company that owns and manages private prisons and detention centers and operates others on a concession basis. Co-founded in 1983 in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas W. B ...
and
GEO Group The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is a publicly traded C corporation headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities in the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The company ...
) that collectively operate more than half of private prison contracts (including immigration detention facilities) collected revenues of over $4 billion (~$ in ). David Rubenstein and Pratheepan Gulasekam, writing for the '' Stanford Law Review Online'' in March 2019, depict the Trump administration as dramatically increasing privatized immigration detention "beyond its already inflated level". Already, most immigrants in the United States are detained in privately-owned facilities, with the private detention industry being worth billions of dollars.


Conditions


Government reports

The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General carried out spot-checks of migrant detention centers from June 26 to 28, 2018. It published a report in September 2018, which was publicized in October 2018. It reported that CBP "in many instances" was violating federal guidelines by detaining migrant children for over 72 hours before passing them to the
Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Im ...
' Office of Refugee Resettlement. Instead, the children were left for up to 25 days in facilities "not designed to hold people for long periods of time." At the facilities checked, 237 of 855 migrant children (28%) who were unaccompanied when entering the United States had been detained for periods of time over the federal limit. Furthermore, according to CBP data, during the period where the Trump administration zero tolerance policy was officially active (May 5, 2018 to June 20, 2018), there were 861 migrant children separated from their families from the Rio Grande Valley sector and the El Paso sector (around 40%) who had been detained for over 72 hours. The Office of Inspector General reported that this figure could be lower than the actual number because CBP used days of entry and exit for its time calculations, not specific hours. The Office of Inspector General's September 2018 report additionally stated that despite the Trump administration's encouragement for migrants to enter the United States through ports of entry, the flow of crossing at the ports of entry were regulated to a slow rate. As a result, this created backlogs of people waiting at the ports of entry, and "likely resulted in additional illegal border crossings" according to the report. Regarding the conditions that unaccompanied migrant children had been detained, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General released another report in September 2018 detailing that during their spot-checks from June 26 to 28, 2018, the facilities visited by them were in compliance with federal standards for food, water and hygiene, with "the exception of inconsistent cleanliness of the hold rooms". Although these were not mandatory, three of nine facilities visited had "trained medical staff", while four of nine facilities visited had shower facilities. In May 2019, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General released a report finding "dangerous overcrowding" at the
El Paso El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...
Del Norte Processing center, where up to 900 migrants had been detained. The official capacity of the center is 125. The report stated: "Border Patrol agents told us some of the detainees had been held in standing-room-only conditions for days or weeks", and with "limited access to showers and clean clothing, detainees were wearing soiled clothing for days or weeks". Many cells reportedly smelled of "what might have been unwashed bodies/body odour, urine, untreated diarrhea, and/or soiled clothing/diapers", while some detainees had to stand on the toilets in the cells "to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to the toilets". 66% of detainees at the center during the May 7, 2019 inspection had been there for more than 72 hours. Also in July 2019, the Office of Inspector General continued to find "dangerous overcrowding" at migrant detention facilities, after inspecting such facilities at Rio Grande Valley in June 2019. Some adults were housed in standing-room conditions for a week. The Office of Inspector General also reported "prolonged detention of children and adults". Of the roughly 8,000 migrants, there were around 3,400 (42%) being detained longer than the 72 hours CBP guideline for detention. With 2,669 children detained, 826 (31%) were detained longer than the 72 hours guideline. Some of the facilities also violated CBP standards by not granting children access to showers or hot meals. Due to overcrowding, CBP could not meet their standards of providing a shower for adults after 72 hours: "most single adults had not had a shower in CBP custody despite several being held for as long as a month". Additionally, "most single adults" were not given any change of clothing despite prolonged detention. Another violation of CBP standards occurred when "many single adults" were only fed
bologna sandwich A bologna sandwich or a baloney sandwich is a sandwich made from bologna sausage between slices of bread, along with various condiments, such as mayonnaise, Mustard (condiment), mustard, and ketchup. The bologna sandwich is a regional specialty ...
es for meals, resulting in some requiring medical assistance.


Visits to facilities

On June 17, 2018, human rights advocates and journalists toured an old warehouse where hundreds of children were being kept in wire cages. The Associated Press reported that the children had no books or toys, overhead lighting was kept on around the clock, and the children were sleeping under foil sheets. There was no adult supervision and the older children were caring for the toddlers. As part of those visiting the facility, a
ProPublica ProPublica (), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in New York City. ProPublica's investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to ne ...
reporter recorded the crying of some of the children that were being kept in one of the cages. On June 18, as reporters waited for a briefing by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
Kirstjen Nielsen Kirstjen Michele Nielsen (; born May 14, 1972) is an American attorney who served as United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019. She is a former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, principal White House deputy chief of staff ...
, ProPublica posted the recording of crying children begging for their parents just after being separated from them, which the reporters listened to as they waited for her to speak. Nielsen arrived and spoke, blaming Congress for the administration's policy of separating parents from their children and saying that there would be no change in policy until Congress rewrote the nation's immigration laws. At one point during the briefing, a ''New York'' magazine reporter played the tape. Nielsen refused to answer any questions about the material in the tape, such as "How is this not child abuse?" On June 22, 2018, First Lady
Melania Trump Melania Knauss Trump (born Melanija Knavs, April26, 1970) is a Slovenian and American former model who is married to U.S. President Donald Trump. Since 2025, Melania Trump has served as the first lady of the United States, a role she previous ...
visited a migrant detention facility for minors aged 12–17 in McAllen, Texas. She said that she "was very impressed with the center and the hardworking staff and leadership there", with the minors being "in good spirits". She called for Congress to pass "immigration reform that secures our borders and keeps families together". Trump drew media attention and speculation from the press because when she boarded the plane for Texas she wore a jacket with the graffiti-style wording "I really don't care Do U?" on the back of her jacket. In July 2018, United States Representative Salud Carbajal, an immigrant himself, visited a migrant detention facility for migrant children in Tornillo, Texas. Carbajal said that a "basic level of care" was being provided, but it was still "basically violating their human rights", being woken at 5 a.m. each day, having less than 5 minutes to shower, and less than 10 to 15 minutes of recreation once or twice a day. In June 2019, a legal team inspected (per the '' Flores settlement'') a facility in
Clint, Texas Clint is a town in El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County, Texas, United States. The population was 923 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is part of the El Paso, Texas, El Paso El Paso metropolitan area, Metropolitan Statistical Ar ...
, (near El Paso) where 250 infant, child and teenage migrants were detained. The lawyers accused the government of neglecting and mistreating the young migrants. The relatively older minors had to take care of the younger ones. The children said they were not fed fruits or vegetables and had not bathed or changed their clothes in weeks. The children were "essentially being warehoused, as many as 300 children in a cell, with almost no adult supervision." The children were "malnourished", there were outbreaks of flu and lice, and "children sleeping on the floor". Professor Warren Binford of the Willamette University was one of the inspectors. She declared that in her years of inspections, this was "the worst conditions" she had ever seen. She also said that the children at Clint were claiming asylum. In response to the situation at Clint, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) declared: "our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis." Also that month, Dolly Lucio Sevier, a board-certified doctor, visited the largest CBP detention center in the United States, the Ursula facility in
McAllen, Texas McAllen is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Hidalgo County. It is located at the southern tip of the state in the Rio Grande Valley, on the Mexican border. The city limits extend south to the Rio Grande, acros ...
which held migrant minors. Her visit came after a flu outbreak at the facility that resulted in five infants requiring to enter a
neonatal intensive care unit A neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), also known as an intensive care nursery (ICN), is an intensive care unit (ICU) specializing in the care of ill or premature newborn infants. The NICU is divided into several areas, including a critical c ...
. Sevier wrote that a medical declaration that the "conditions within which he migrant minorsare held could be compared to torture facilities ... extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food." All of the 39 children she assessed showed signs of trauma. Under federal law, the migrant minors were supposed to be detained for a maximum of 72 hours. At both the facilities in Clint and McAllen, many children said that they had been detained for three weeks or more. On July 1, 2019, several Democratic congressmen visited migrant detention centers in Texas, in a tour organized by Border Patrol agents at 48 hours' notice, and gave comments afterwards. Representative Marc Veasey said Border Patrol "went out of their way to show us facilities that were mostly empty", but the migrant detainees inside "described being deprived of daily showers and certain other rights". Representative Madeleine Dean labelled the situation as "a human rights crisis": 15 "women in their 50s- 60s sleeping in a small concrete cell, no running water. Weeks without showers. All of them separated from their families". Representative
Lori Trahan Lori Ann Trahan ( ; Loureiro; born October 27, 1973) is an American businesswoman and politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 2019. The district covers Boston's northwestern suburbs, and includes Lowell, Lawrence, Concord, a ...
said she saw women "sobbing in a crowded cell because they were separated from their kids." Representatives
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (born October 13, 1989), also known as AOC, is an American politician and activist who has served since 2019 as the United States House of Representatives, US representative for New York's 14th congressional distric ...
,
Judy Chu Judy May Chu (born July 7, 1953) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for . A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, she has held a seat in Congress since 2009, representing until redistricting. ...
and
Joaquin Castro Joaquin Castro (born September 16, 1974) is an American lawyer and Democratic Party (United States), Democratic politician who has represented Texas's 20th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives since 2013. The distr ...
alleged that Border Patrol had told detained migrant women to drink out of a toilet for water. Castro also said that he had met between 15 and 20 mothers who had been detained for more than 50 days, some of whom had been separated from their children. Representative Joe Kennedy III said that Border Patrol had been uncooperative, attempting to confiscate the congressmen's phones, and blocking the taking of pictures and videos. Activists who had gathered at the facility chanted support for President Donald Trump and directed racist comments towards Representative
Rashida Tlaib Rashida Harbi Tlaib ( ; born July 24, 1976) is an American lawyer and politician serving as a U.S. representative from Michigan since 2019, representing the state's 12th congressional district since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, sh ...
, a Muslim. On July 12, 2019, a group of Republican congressmen visited a migrant detention centers in Texas along with Vice President Mike Pence. Senator
Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin Graham (; born July 9, 1955) is an American politician and attorney serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from South Carolina, a seat he has held since 2003. A membe ...
was one of those who made the visit. Graham said that he saw 900 illegal immigrants in a facility meant for 385, resulting in an extra tent being put up. Graham elaborated that this was "not a concentration camp" but "a facility overwhelmed". He praised Border Patrol officers as "brave men and women who are doing an incredible job". On July 13, 2019, another group of Democratic lawmakers visited migrant detention centers in McAllen, Texas, including a detention center that Vice President Pence had just visited the day before. Representative Jim McGovern tweeted that the migrants had not showered in 40 days, were sleeping on concrete with the lights on, and some migrants said they had not been given enough food. Representative Jackie Speier said that she saw parents with young children, "many of them listless, many were sick ... They had this kind of vacant look on their faces." Speier released photos of her tour; the Representatives had been allowed to bring their phones with them. Representative Annie Kuster said that she saw detained adult men "jammed into cells so that they couldn't even lay down". Kuster also stated some men "have not washed in 40 days, they have not brushed their teeth". Kuster described detained migrants having various illnesses: skin conditions, flu and meningitis. With the lights in the facility being always on, Kuster said that the migrants "don't know the difference between day or night".


Photos and videos

In June 2018, U.S. Customs and Border Protection released photos of detained migrant children in a Texas immigration facility. Also that month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released photos (that showed no migrants) of a tent city for teenage boys in Tornillo, Texas. Aerial photos taken by Reuters that month of the Tornillo tent city showed migrants walking in a line through the city. In May 2019, Reuters took photos (from a helicopter) of makeshift camps for migrants by the Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas. The photos showed the migrants using reflective blankets as makeshift awnings for shade, migrants "sleeping in a shaded area of a parking lot and crowded around a military tent."


Cases of American citizens detained

American citizens have been detained on suspicion of being illegal immigrants. In March 2019, Customs and Border Protection detained an American brother-and-sister minors while they were travelling to school from
Tijuana Tijuana is the most populous city of the Mexican state of Baja California, located on the northwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. Tijuana is the municipal seat of the Tijuana Municipality, the hub of the Tijuana metropolitan area and the most popu ...
, Mexico, to San Ysidro, San Diego in the U.S. The 9-year old girl was detained for 32 hours while CBP were processing her identification. CBP accused the girl of having "provided inconsistent information during her inspection". According to the girl, CBP personnel said that she did not look like the person in her passport picture, and accused her of really being her cousin. According to their mother, officers threatened the 14-year old brother with charges of human trafficking and sex trafficking, and made him sign a document alleging that the girl was really his cousin. The boy said he did sign the document so that he could see his sister again. The Mexican consulate assisted in arranging the release of the siblings. In June 2019, an 18-year old American male was detained after CBP stopped a group consisting of himself, his brothers and his friends at a checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas. The teenager's family said that he had given CBP personnel his Texas state identification, a copy of his birth certificate, and his social security card, but that CBP had rejected all of them. As a result, the teenager was detained for 23 days. He said that he was kept together with 60 other people, had no access to showers, tooth brushing, beds, calls to his family or a calls to a lawyer. He also stated he lost 26 pounds as a result of the detention. The teenager's 17-year old brother, an illegal immigrant, was also detained, but voluntarily deported himself so that he could inform his family about the situation. The teenager is suing the government for the incident. On 1 March 2025, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit to block the Trump administration's plan to transfer 10 migrants to Guantanamo Bay, citing poor detention conditions and human rights concerns. The migrants, who are from Venezuela, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, are not deemed high-risk offenders. The lawsuit also disputes the ending of former President Biden's "parole" programs for migrants with U.S. sponsors.


Reactions


The Trump administration


President Donald Trump

On July 3, 2019, President Donald Trump declared that U.S. Border Patrol was doing a "great job": "Many of these illegals aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions ... If Illegal Immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detentions centers, just tell them not to come. All problems solved!" On July 7, 2019, Trump said that detained migrants "are very happy with what's going on because, relatively speaking, they're in much better shape right now" than compared to the "unbelievable poverty" in their home countries. On July 14, 2019, Trump wrote that a McAllen, Texas facility visited by Vice President Mike Pence had "adult single men areas were clean but crowded – also loaded up with a big percentage of criminals". Trump cited no evidence to back up his claim. Journalist Josh Dawsey of ''The Washington Post'', who had visited the facility at the same time as Pence, responded to Trump that the detained men "hadn't showered in many days" and that the "stench was horrific".


Vice President Mike Pence

Vice President
Mike Pence Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Repub ...
argued in June 2019 that while the Trump administration believes that while soap and toothbrushes should be provided for migrant children, "it's all a part of the appropriations process", and "Congress needs to provide additional support". On July 12, 2019, Pence visited first a migrant detention facility for families and children in Donna, Texas, and second a migrant detention facility for single adults in McAllen, Texas. Pence described that at the Donna facility, "excellent care asbeing provided" to migrant families and children. At the McAllen facility, 384 adult men were caged together. The federal agent in charge of the facility said that many of the men had not bathed in 10 to 20 days, and that some of the men had been held for over 30 days. Agents at the facility wore face masks. A journalist on the same visit said that the "stench was overwhelming". Pence reacted: "I was not surprised by what I saw ... This is tough stuff." Pence later criticized media outlet
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
for focusing on the worse conditions at the McAllen facility, compared to the better conditions of the Donna facility. Pence also said that "allegations of heartless mistreatment by Customs and Border Protection" were false and "slanderous". Pence also accused "many" of the men in the McAllen facility as having multiple arrests.


Attorney General Jeff Sessions

In May 2018, Attorney General
Jeff Sessions Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States attorney general from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United Stat ...
declared: "If you don't want your child separated, then don't bring them across the border illegally." On June 5, 2018, Sessions claimed that detained migrant children "are being well taken care of". He also stated that these children would be passed over from detention to Health and Human Services "within 72 hours". On June 21, 2018, Sessions claimed that the Trump administration "never really intended to" separate families while the parents are detained, despite that being an effect Sessions previously acknowledged would occur when the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy was implemented.


Other officials

Matthew Albence, a senior official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, testified to Congress in July 2018 that migrant detention centers for families were like "summer camp": "24/7 food and water ... educational opportunities ... recreational opportunities ... exercise classes". Kevin McAleenan, the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said in March 2019 that there was a "border security and a humanitarian crisis" at the Mexico-U.S. border. By July 2019, McAleenan had become the Acting Homeland Security Secretary. He said that funding provided by Congress in June 2019 "meets immediate acute needs at the border and has already improved conditions for children".


International reactions

Experts of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
'
Human Rights Council The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The ...
in June 2018 criticized that the Trump administration was detaining child migrants "as a deterrent to irregular migration", stating that detaining children "severely hampers their development, and in some cases may amount to
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
".
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister Advice (constitutional law), advises the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, sovereign on the exercise of much of the Royal prerogative ...
,
Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Baroness May of Maidenhead (; ; born 1 October 1956), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretar ...
, said in June 2018 that regarding the detention of migrants in the United States, "pictures of children being held in what appear to be cages are deeply disturbing", and that the United Kingdom disagreed with such actions. The United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Michelle Bachelet Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (; born 29 September 1951) is a Chilean politician who served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to 2018, becoming the first woman to hold the presidency. She was re-elected in December ...
, was in July 2019 "deeply shocked" at the conditions that the migrant children were reported to have been subjected to, with concerns about overcrowding, food, sleep, hygiene and healthcare. On 9 November 2020, the United States faced a review at the UN's Human Rights Council session of 3.5 hours, citing the unexplained detentions of migrant children and the killings of unarmed Black people, during the Trump administration's tenure, among other main issues. Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Russia and China were among the countries that questioned and scrutinised the United States' record on human rights.


Academic sources

Mary Grace Antonym, writing for the ''
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies The ''Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies'' is an academic journal published by Routledge. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal had a 2018 impact factor of 2.297, ranking it 2nd out of 18 journals in the category "Ethnic ...
'', interviewed former volunteers at migrant family detention centers and analysed news reports from July 2017 to August 2017. Antonym concluded that "moral disengagement" had a key role "rationalising detention", with detained migrants being ultimately perceived as "little more than monetary units". During the study, Antonym also noted that the Trump administration was attempting to increase total migrant detention facility capacity to 80,000. Mónica Verea, writing for ''Norteamérica'' in December 2018, stated that the Trump administration had "considerably" increased the numbers of "non-criminal undocumented migrants" detained. Han Seunghan and Choi Hyunkyung wrote in 2018 for a Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies conference that detentions and family separations are "traumatizing events" for child and young adult migrants, which may cause them to have
posttraumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops from experiencing a Psychological trauma, traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster ...
(PTSD). Susan Schmidt, writing for ''
Social Work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...
'' in January 2019, stated that the Trump administration's treatment of migrant children at the Mexico-U.S. border violated the standards for American children passed by Congress and Trump in the Family First Prevention Services Act of February 2018. Schmidt argued that the Trump administration's lack of priority in reunifying child migrants with their parents resulted in more "trauma" being inflicted. David Hernández, writing for ''NACLA Report on the Americas'', wrote in May 2019 that "migrant detention is a punitive incarceration system rife with lawful forms of corruption." Detention corporations engage in unregistered lobbying, including through the
American Legislative Exchange Council The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a nonprofit organization of conservatism in the United States, conservative state legislature (United States), state legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share Model act, ...
. They have also donated to Trump's inauguration fund, hired a former leader of the Trump inauguration committee, and moved their annual conference from their own facility to a Trump resort. Kevin Johnson and Rose Cuison-Villazor wrote for ''Wake Forest Law Review'' in May 2019 that the President Trump's changing policies on migrant detention "struggled to establish a policy that goes to the legal limits". The administration's tough approach to immigration with mandatory detention ignored that "the vast majority" of families putting bonds to be released while waiting for hearings eventually did return to attend their hearings. Johnson and Cuison-Villazor argue that the Trump administration had alternatives to mandatory detentions, with the possibility of "catch and release" for non-flight risks and non-dangerous migrants, or even ankle bracelets for tracking. Emily Ryo, in 2019's ''
Annual Review of Law and Social Science The ''Annual Review of Law and Social Science'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes an annual volume of review articles relevant to the interconnection of law, culture, social structure, and society. It was established in 2005 and is ...
'', credited the "media storm" over 2018's Trump administration family separation policy resulted in "unprecedented public awareness about immigration detention" in the United States.


"Concentration camp" label

Historian Waitman Wade Beorn declared in ''The Washington Post'' in June 2018 that the detention centers for migrant children were
concentration camps A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
. Beorn specializes in Holocaust and genocide studies, according to the Post, and he is the author of '' Marching into Darkness'', a history of the German army's role in the Holocaust. Beorn wrote that the best historical comparison for these detention centers was the Camp de Rivesaltes, a French concentration camp operated from 1939 through 1967, and then from 1985 to 2007. At various points in time, the camp hosted Spanish refugees, Jewish refugees, prisoners-of-war, Algerians, and other migrants. To explain this comparison, Beorn stated that the Camp de Rivesaltes was "a temporary, insufficiently conceived facility designed to prevent foreigners from entering the country", and "officials have no real plan" with how to handle the migrants, just like the American detention centers. As reported by ''Newsweek'' in June 2019, several other academics also labelled the migrant detention centers as concentration camps. These include American studies professor Rachel Ida Buff of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, sociology professor Richard Lachmann of the
University at Albany The State University of New York at Albany (University at Albany, UAlbany, or SUNY Albany) is a Public university, public research university in Albany, New York, United States. Founded in 1844, it is one of four "university centers" of the St ...
, and also Amy Simon, the
Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...
chair in Holocaust Studies and European Jewish History. A different view was proposed by history professor Jay Geller of the
Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...
, who instead labelled the migrant detention centers as internment camps. Meanwhile, history professor Anika Walke of the
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...
rejected the notion that the term of "concentration camp" can only be restricted to the case of
Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...
.


Industry response


Wayfair

In mid-June 2019,
Wayfair Wayfair Inc. is an American e-commerce company based in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts that sells furniture and home goods online. Formerly known as CSN Stores, it was founded in 2002, and currently offers 14 million items from more than 11,000 gl ...
employees learned that an order for about $200,000 (~$ in ) worth of bedroom furniture was placed by the global nonprofit BCFS Health and Human Services, which operates migrant facilities for the Department of Health and Human Services. In a letter sent to senior management on June 21, 2019, more than 500 Wayfair employees demanded that the company "cease to do business with BCFS and establish a code of ethics that empowers employees 'to act in accordance with our core values. In further protest, employees staged a walkout on June 26, 2019 at the company's headquarters in Boston. The protesters called for the company to donate all profits made from the sale of the furniture to RAICES, a nonprofit organization that provides free legal services to immigrants. Those profits total $86,000, according to the Twitter account wayfairwalkout. The protest received praise from American congresswomen
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (born October 13, 1989), also known as AOC, is an American politician and activist who has served since 2019 as the United States House of Representatives, US representative for New York's 14th congressional distric ...
, who described the walkout as "what solidarity looks like".
Niraj Shah Niraj S. Shah (born 1973/1974) is an American businessman, and co-founder, co-chairman, and CEO of online retailer Wayfair. Early life Shah grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the son of immigrants from India. His g ...
, the CEO of Wayfair, generated additional controversy after he rejected the demands and donated to the
Red Cross The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...
, which does not provide support to migrants detained at the border.


Airlines

In June 2018, US airlines spoke out against the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy that resulted in the separation of migrant children from their families. American Airlines, United Airlines and Frontier Airlines all asked the federal government not to use their planes to transport migrant children after they are taken from their parents.


Walmart

In June 2018, Walmart also became embroiled when one of its former Brownsville, Texas, locations was turned into a shelter last year. "We're really disturbed by how our former store is being used", the company said. "When we sold the building in 2016 we had no idea it'd be used for this."


See also

*


References


External links

* {{First presidency of Donald Trump 2019 controversies in the United States Articles containing video clips Child welfare in the United States Crime and children Detention centers Human rights abuses in the United States Illegal immigration to the United States Immigration policy of Donald Trump Internments in the United States Penal system in the United States Trump administration controversies United States Department of Homeland Security