Family immigration detention in the United States
Family detention is the detention of multiple family members together in an immigration detention context. In the U.S. they are referred to as family detention camps, family detention centers, or family detention facilities. Families crossing the United States border without a visa or other papers demonstrating they are admissible to the country are currently subject to detention by Customs and Border Protection. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security defines only those children traveling with their parents or legal guardians as part of "family units" and all other children as "unaccompanied minors." Adults traveling  with children are required by Customs and Border Protection to verify their legal or biological parentage, and if they cannot, the children are deemed unaccompanied. As a result, children traveling with grandparents, adult siblings, and aunts and uncles are separated and referred to the Unaccompanied Alien Children program. Since 2017, the government separated some children from their parents as well under a family separation policy, although this policy was officially rescinded in June 2018. As of December 2021, under the Biden administration, family immigration detention is no longer being used. History. In 2014 the Obama administration opened new family  detention centers in the United States. At the time there was only one government-operated facility, which was located York County, Pennsylvania. In 2015, intact families were not regularly separated at the United States border. In February 2016, the designation Family Unit Aliens or FMUA was introduced. The majority of families apprehended at the border were not linked to fraud according to an official within U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In July 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court's decision (in July 2015, by Judge Dolly Gee) to quickly release child  migrants from family detention even when accompanied by a parent. In 2017 and 2018, the number of family units (groups of at least one adult and at least one child) from Guatemala and Honduras detained by the U.S. increased, as families fled gang violence and instability in Central America. In March 2021, shortly after Joe Biden became President, ICE announced that no families were being held at the Berks County Residential Center any more, and that the detention center would no longer be used for family detention. The other two family detention centers, Dilley and Karnes, were now to be  used only for holding families for short, three-day periods. In December 2021, "Axios" reported that ICE would stop engaging in family detention for the time being, and officials confirmed this. Families detained by Customs and Border Protection. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, holds immigrant families after their initial arrest. Under departmental standards, CBP should transfer them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement within 72 hours, but in 2019, many such families are being held for weeks in CBP custody. On June 13, 2019, the government reported that 4,865 members of "family units  were held by the CBP. Family detention centers in the United States. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts with several facilities to detain families with children. The General Accounting Office reports that the 3 active facilities have a combined capacity of 3,326 people. Active family detention centers include: Former family detention facilities. Former family detention centers include: Proposed family detention facilities. Executive Order 13841, signed on June 20, 2018, instructs that, The Secretary of Defense shall take all legally available measures to provide to the Secretary, upon request, any existing facilities available for the housing and care of alien  families, and shall construct such facilities if necessary and consistent with law." On June 21, the Department of Health and Human Services requested facilities to house migrant children. Pentagon spokesmen and a memorandum sent to Congress confirmed that the Department of Defense was preparing facilities at four military bases in Texas and Arkansas to house 20,000 "unaccompanied alien children."