Progressives appalled Biden could return to holding migrant families in detention

Progressives and immigration advocates are appalled by President Biden’s reported consideration of a border policy that would hold migrant families in detention facilities and break one of his central campaign pledges to voters.

If reinstated, the move would set a hardline tone from Democrats for the 2024 election season on how migrants are treated at the border, blurring the differences over the issue with former President Donald Trump and Republicans.

“Locking immigrant families and children into cages along the border is dangerous, ineffective, and wrong,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), a newly-elected House progressive from the state’s 35th congressional district, said on Tuesday. “It is dangerous and wrong to incarcerate refugee children, regardless of political party.”

Casar and other Democrats were reacting in part to a report in the The New York Times that said Biden was considering bringing back elements of Trump’s detainee policy. Progressives and a host of interest groups argued that Biden promised a different path forward on the issue. Those are now at risk of being unraveled, they say.

“We can’t go back,” said Casar, a Latino and freshman congressman whose campaign was backed by Justice Democrats.

He suggested that Biden’s possible embrace of what Republicans used during the Trump years after the temporary Title 42 policy ends in early May would be “caving to anti-immigrant fear mongering,” and effectively mimicking the GOP’s playbook.

“It’s infuriating,” Setareh Ghandehari, who serves as advocacy director at the pro-immigration coalition Detention Watch Network, told The Hill.

Immigration has been an ever-debated, ever-delicate policy focus during both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Trump used a tough stance and strict rhetoric to gin up his base against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and carried it throughout his time in the Oval Office.

Talk of building a “wall” along the Mexican border became his signature.

Biden said he would offer a different position and Democrats embraced much of what he promised. He moved to do away with the “Remain in Mexico” program — which is now tied up in court — and he later established an immigration parole program.

Now critics are worried Biden is backpedaling his pledges.

“He specifically made several statements condemning Trump’s use of family detention and family separation and promised to do something different and specifically end family detention,” said Ghandehari. “And what we’ve seen is a continual walking back of his promises.”

While new reporting shows a potential change in direction has already sparked a debate, recent data indicates the topic is still highly polarizing at the national level.

A recent survey conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that the country is divided on how to address individuals seeking asylum. According to the poll, 4 out of 10 respondents said that they believe the number of people seeking asylum in the United States should be eased, compared to 2 out of 10 who want it to be increased.

Liberals, particularly in the House, see a clear right and wrong position, and fear Biden is on the wrong side.

“It is unacceptable that this administration would even consider going back to the Trump-era policies that caused so much harm and trauma to children and families,” Rep. Chuy García (D-IL) wrote in a statement.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled a new rule that would limit which migrants can apply for asylum at the border, a plan that invoked criticism among liberals.

Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), a prominent progressive, told reporters last week that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which she chairs, is working with the Congressional Tri-Caucus to craft a statement formally opposing the administration’s new rule.

Barragán, like other House Democrats, called the latest reported development “deeply concerning” this week.

“A just, safe, and humane immigration system should not place families in detention,” she wrote in a statement. “We should not return to the failed policies of the past where families are detained in substandard conditions with long-term damage to children.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is scheduled to virtually brief members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Tuesday evening on the administration’s border security plans, a Democratic aide confirmed to The Hill. It will likely include questions regarding the potential controversial policy revival.

“Democrats are supposed to be the party of families and opportunity,” said Natalia Salgado, who leads the Federal Affairs division at the Working Families Party. “The president shouldn’t even consider reinstating a policy that slams the door of opportunity shut for migrants and refugees in the most dehumanizing ways imaginable.”

“We didn’t turn the page on the Trump Administration just to return to the same cruel policies,” Salgado said.

Rafael Bernal contributed.

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