Immigrant Detentions Soar Under Biden Despite Campaign Promises

The number of people in federal immigration detention has risen markedly under President Joe Biden.

Since the end of February, the number of detainees has more than doubled, to nearly 27,000.

That's higher than the total detained last July under then-President Donald Trump.

The rising detentions are a sore point for Biden's pro-immigration allies, who had hoped he would turn the page on Trump's hardline immigration policies.

Many of them have cleared their initial screening to seek asylum in the United States.

Immigration opponents counter that the more troubling trend is immigration enforcement in cities and towns has dropped off.

Alexander Martinez says he fled from the notorious MS-13 gang and homophobia in his native El Salvador only to find abuse and harassment in America's immigration detention system.

Since crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in April, the 28-year-old has bounced between six different immigration detention facilities across three states.

He says he contracted COVID-19, dealt with racist taunts and abuse from guards and been harassed by fellow detainees for being gay.

Martinez is among a growing number of people in immigration detention centers nationwide, many of whom have cleared their initial screening to seek asylum in the U.S.

In May, the Biden administration terminated contracts with two controversial ICE detention centers — one in Georgia and another in Massachusetts — getting praise from advocates who hoped it would be the start of a broader rollback.

A White House spokesman said Biden's budget reduces the number of ICE detention beds and shifts some of their use to processing immigrants for parole and other alternatives.

Martinez cleared his initial screening in May, which determines whether an asylum-seeker has a "credible fear" of persecution in their homeland.

But his lawyers say ICE is keeping him detained because it wrongly believes he's a member of the notorious Salvadoran gang MS-13.

Detainees and advocates call for closing detention facilities in favor of monitoring paroled immigrants with GPS devices and other measures.

Last month, ICE detainees at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey filed an administrative complaint with Homeland Security's civil rights office seeking an investigation into allegations including poor sanitary conditions and medical neglect during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ICE detainees at the Plymouth County House of Corrections in Massachusetts similarly sent a letter to supporters in June, detailing issues like restrictions on visits.

Massachusetts resident Allison Cullen says she hasn't been able to visit her husband, a Brazilian national, since before the pandemic.

Cullen says the couple's youngest child was only a few months old when Flavio Andrade Prado Jr. was detained, and he hasn't seen his now-2-year-old daughter in person in months.

Prado expressed his frustration with Biden's failure to enact immigration reforms during a recent phone call to his wife.

Speaking through his Cullen's speakerphone, Prado said he's lost faith in politicians who he accused of making all sorts of promises on immigrations and failing to deliver once they are elected into office.

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