NYT Publishes Game-Changer On Family Detention

The New York Times Magazine has published what might become a game-changer in the immigration courts crisis. Under the headline “The Shame of America’s Family Detention Camps,” the piece by Wil S. Hylton offers background that “…since the economic collapse of 2008, the number of undocumented immigrants coming from Mexico has plunged, while a surge of violence in Central America has brought a wave of migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. According to recent statistics from the Department of Homeland Security, the number of refugees fleeing Central America has doubled in the past year alone — with more than 61,000 “family units” crossing the U.S. border, as well as 51,000 unaccompanied children. For the first time, more people are coming to the United States from those countries than from Mexico, and they are coming not just for opportunity but for survival.”
 
He also notes that the Obama administration reversed its policy when the crisis hit, to a “draconian” approach. And the human and public policy misery that followed. It’s a milestone story in the history of U.S. family detention: