US to open immigrant family detention centres

The Obama administration is actively looking for additional space to house families caught crossing the border with Mexico illegally, primarily for mothers with young children, officials said.
Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the statement yesterday amid a surge of migrants seeking to enter the United States from Central America.
Mayorkas did not say how many people the new family detention centres would house or where they will be located. The government currently operates only one such facility, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, with space for fewer than 100 people.
Mayorkas said about 39,000 adults with children have been apprehended at the border since the start of the budget year in October.

The administration has released an unspecified number of them into the US in recent months with instructions to report later to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices.
Mayorkas, the No 2 official at the agency and former head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, told reporters he didn't know how many people have been released or subsequently appeared as ordered.

Mayorkas said the administration will also send more immigration judges, ICE attorneys and other immigration officials to the region to help process migrants caught crossing the border illegally and, when possible, quickly return them to their home countries.
Immigrants crossing the border illegally have overwhelmed US immigration agencies. More than 174,000 people, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have been arrested in Texas' Rio Grande Valley this year.

Other announcements the administration made about illegal immigration from Central America yesterday include: The administration will give the governments of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala USD 9.6 million to help local authorities reintegrate returned immigrants.
The US Agency for International Development will launch a USD 40 million program to help improve citizen security in Guatemala. USAID will also start a USD 25 million crime and violence prevention program in El Salvador.
More than USD 18 million will be used to support community policing and law enforcement efforts to combat gangs in Honduras under the Central American Regional Security Initiative, or CARSI.

The US government will also provide USD 161.5 million for CARSI programs focused on security and government challenges in the region.