The New York Times reported on March 6, 2023 that the Biden administration is considering renewing family detention to deter families and their children who are seeking protection from coming to the United States. The policy, if implemented, would contradict his promises to create a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system.
The move is being considered in response to an expected end to Title 42. Title 42 is a public health law that was first used by then-President Donald Trump to immediately expel people seeking safety at the US-Mexico border.
In response, Vicki B. Gaubeca, associate director of US Immigration and Border Policy at Human Rights Watch said,
"Human Rights Watch is extremely concerned with the administration's potential plan to detain families. Jailing children and their parents is an unacceptable and cruel approach to dealing with families seeking protection from harm, hoping to reunite with relatives in the US, or wanting a better life. Such detention policies would continue to subject children to serious, deliberate harm, in violation of their rights.
"President Biden, and the United States, can and should do better than this. Instead of continuing to implement punitive models involving locking people up that have proven to be both ineffective and harmful, the Biden administration instead should be creating humane processes at ports of entry that respect the rights, humanity, and dignity of all people arriving to US borders."
