Biden administration’s immigrant detention moves highlight strained system

The administration is shaking up federal immigration detention and enforcement amid a push to cut costs systemwide and increase detention capacity to implement President Biden’s new asylum policy.

The bombshell cost-cutting plan came out Monday, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the closure of the South Texas Family Residential Center, a 10-year-old detention facility better known as Dilley.

Advocates are reporting other cost-cutting measures — in particular, they are concerned that detainees are no longer allowed a weekly phone call that for many represented their only connection to the outside world, and to legal representation.