ICE to close nation’s largest migrant detention center in South Texas

McALLEN, Texas ( Border Report ) — A South Texas migrant detention center that has the most detainees of any U.S. facility will be shutting down, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

The South Texas Family Residential Center, in Dilley, Texas, will be closing to save costs, according to ICE, which said it is “the most expensive facility in the national detention network.”

The Dilley facility is operated by the Tennessee-based CoreCivic, a private prison operator for whom it generated $156.6 million in revenue in 2023, according to Dow Jones .

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement remains focused on meeting the constantly changing operational needs of the immigration enforcement mission in a fiscally responsible manner,” ICE Deputy Director Patrick Lechleitner said in a statement earlier this month.

By closing the facility, the agency says it will be able to reallocate funding to increase the overall detention bed capacity across the system by about 1,600 beds “to better support operational needs.”

“We continue to evaluate contracts to ensure we are financially responsible and can increase removal flights and detention bed space capacity to support the dynamic immigration landscape while operating within the budget provided by Congress,” Lechleitner said.

Lechleitner announced the restructuring on June 10 and said it would save funds for an overall increase in bed space above the 41,500 minimum bed requirement appropriated in Fiscal Year 2024.

The announcement came after President Joe Biden issued an executive order on June 4 that restricts asylum applications to those who schedule asylum appointments with the CBP One app and/or stress they fear returning to their home country upon being encountered by Border Patrol agents. Otherwise, they face swift removals.

CBP reported Thursday that since May 12, 2023 — when Title 42 expired — the Department of Homeland Security has removed or returned over 775,000 individuals, most of whom were encountered on the Southwest border.

The nonprofit group Government Accountability Project wrote on its website that by closing the Dilley facility, more adults will be detained in other ways.

The organization points out that larger CBP processing facilities, such as one located in Donna, Texas, are opened on the border and holding larger numbers of migrants in the past few years.

“While the closure of the Dilley facility is a welcome development following over a decade of concerns raised by both detained families and whistleblowers, its closure will enable the administration to redirect resources to a fraught system of adult detention. Given both the expected increases in ICE’s detention of adults under any future administration, and the extraordinary lack of agency and independent oversight of CBP operations, whistleblowers will be even more crucial to speak up about abuses they may encounter,” said Andrea Meza, director of immigration and director of advocacy campaigns for the Government Accountability Project.

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) of Syracuse University reports that the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley so far this Fiscal Year 2024 has held the largest number of ICE detainees, averaging 1,784 per day.

In 2021 it began accepting only single adults.

CoreCivic reports that the termination of its agreement with ICE is effective on Aug. 9.

TRAC reports that as of June 16, there were 38,525 individuals being held in detention facilities nationwide. That’s up by 1,000 from the start of June.

Texas, by far, is the state with the most ICE detainees with 13,564, as of June 10, TRAC reports. Louisiana has 6,149 and California 2,571.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.

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