Hundreds of Human Rights Groups Speak Out Against Biden's Family Detention Plan

This week nearly 400 human rights groups urged the Biden administration not to revive the controversial practice of migrant family detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Biden ended family detention when he took office two years ago but is now reportedly reconsidering it as part of a wider crackdown as his administration prepares to phase out the contested Trump-era Title 42 pandemic policy used to expel over 2 million migrants without due process at the southern border. We speak with Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network, who says “the Biden administration has faltered and is going against all the promises that they made on the campaign trail.” We also speak with Mike Ishii, co-founder of Tsuru for Solidarity, which joined the call to stop family detention. He notes many Japanese Americans are still healing from the trauma of mass detention during World War II. “There’s an intersectional history here of always targeting communities of color and immigrant communities with this kind of state violence,” says Ishii.