The Trump administration’s plan to expand housing for illegal immigrant families has been put on hold, as officials consider how a legal challenge to its latest border enforcement plan could be resolved by the courts.
The administration said last week that it wants to detain immigrant families under the Department of Homeland Security’s authority, which would allow prosecutions of adults who enter the country illegally. That would solve the problem of family separations that happened when officials followed a court settlement that said children can only be detained for a short time before being sent to the care of the Department of Health and Human Services.
But so far, the administration hasn’t moved to implement its new housing plan, and officials reached by the Washington Examiner indicated they are still considering how the courts might react.
“Given the recent differing court rulings, the interagency is still developing the next steps,” one official wrote in a text message.
Spokespersons for Homeland Security and the Justice Departments declined requests to comment on where the plan stood.
Last Friday, the Justice Department filed a statement claiming it has resolved the problem of family separation by having DHS detain all immigrant families, instead of sending children to HHS. The department said it wants the so-called Flores settlement amended to allow DHS to detain entire families, but said in the meantime, this is how it would keep families together.
That statement is matched by a plan to let DHS obtain longer-term housing for detained families, possibly by using Defense Department facilities. DHS specifically asked the Defense Department in late June for facilities that could house “an alien family population of up to 12,000 people” in less than two months.
[Pentagon asked to house up to 32,000 illegal immigrants on military bases]
That plan essentially envisions a return to the “zero tolerance” border policy favored by Trump, who wants to continue to be able to prosecute illegal entrants without separating them from their families as it happens.
“If they’re going to do zero tolerance again and they’re going to keep families together, they’re going to need boatloads of space. So I think that’s what you’re seeing with that request,” a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
As a back-up plan, DHS asked about the Pentagon’s ability to build tent cities for 4,000 people at three different locations.
[Related: Putting migrant children in tent cities costs $775 per person per night: Report]
But all those plans are on hold, and it’s not yet clear how pending court decisions might influence the administration’s next steps.
The Justice Department’s announcement of how it wants to solve the problem was made last week in response to a federal judge who issued an injunction saying the government must stop separating parents and children at the border, and must reunite families within 30 days.
The parties in that San Diego case are scheduled to meet this Friday for a conference, and it’s unclear what will happen then, or whether there might be other challenges to the Trump administration’s decision to detain families.
In the meantime, DHS agencies only have three detention centers — two in southwest border states and one in Pennsylvania — so the idea of taking in thousands more families in the region where they are apprehended is impossible without additional housing.
