Featured Issue: Immigration Detention and Alternatives to Detention
Update: On March 14, 2025, AILA released a statement in response to the Trump Administration resuming the practice of detaining families pending their court proceedings in the detention facility in Karnes County, TX, and indicating its plans to use a second facility in Dilley, TX, for family detention.
AILA calls on Congress to significantly reduce and phase out the use of immigration detention for immigration enforcement purposes. Detention is costly, leads to inefficiencies in processing cases, and has a long track record of human rights abuses. Community-based case management services and legal representation is more humane and should be offered to noncitizens to support their compliance of immigration obligations.
Contents
By the Numbers
- Book Outs/Books In: The Office of Homeland Security Statistics provides data on the number of migrants who are released from CBP custody to proceed with removal cases, transfers to ICE detention, and transfers to Health & Human Services (HHS). It also provides initial book-in data on ICE detention.
- Detention: For FY2024, Congress has provided funding to detain a daily average of 41,500 noncitizens at a cost of approximately $3.4 billion. During FY2023, Congress provided funding to detain a daily average of 34,000 noncitizens at a cost of approximately $2.9 billion. A December 2024 ICE memo in response to Congressional requests for information noted that increasing detention capacity by more than 60,000 beds will require a funding increase of approximately $3.2 billion dollars.
- Current Population: Per ICE, on December 8, 2024, there were 39,062 people in custody and on January 22, 2025, there were 39,703. For future data, see bi-weekly data posted on the ICE website under “Fiscal Year 2025 statistics” here.
- Daily Costs: Projected average daily costs of detaining an adult noncitizen: $164.65. The actual cost of detaining a noncitizen varies based on geographic region, length of detention, facility type, etc. A recent ICE memo in response to the costs of expanding detention noted that they expect a 5% inflationary increase from FY2024 enacted bed costs.
- Deaths at Adult Detention Centers - AILA supplies a continually updated list of ICE press releases announcing deaths in adult immigration detention. Note: there can be delays in ICE’s reporting of deaths and there have been instances of seriously ill individuals released from ICE custody, whose deaths are not included in this list.
- ICE Alternatives to Detention: For FY2024, Congress provided approximately $470 million in funding for ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ADT) program. This is an increase from approximately $443 million in FY2023 in which 194,427 people were enrolled.
- Daily Costs of ICE ATD: Average daily cost for participants enrolled in ICE’s Intensive Appearance Supervision Program (ISAP): $8.00
- Community-Based Case Management: The FEMA/CRCL Case Management Pilot Program (CMPP), also known as the “Alternatives to Detention Grant Program,” received $15 million in continued funding for FY2024. Prior to January 20, 2025, it was operating in five cities.
- Average daily cost of providing case management for individual family members by a community-based organization (2018 pilot): $14.05
- Legal Representation: There is no right to a government-provided attorney in immigration court and 70 percent of detained persons face proceedings without counsel. There is a pilot program that serves adult individuals with mental disabilities. Congress did not provide any funding for adult legal representation for FY2024.
AILA’s Recommendations to Congress
- Reduce detention funding to at least 25,000 average daily population or less.
- Explicitly prohibit detention funding from being used to detain families and children in custodial settings.
- Provide continued funding community-based case management programs outside of ICE such as the Case Management Pilot Program (CMPP) operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL)
- Conduct robust oversight of past congressional appropriations transparency requirements and continue to require ICE to disclose and publish information relating to detention contracts, inspection process and reports, detention data, and policies for the alternatives to detention program.
Background
Created in 2002, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has over 22,000 full-time employees, with a total annual budget of more than $9 billion. The agency has three core operational directorates: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). Housed within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE joins Customs & Border Protection (CBP) in making up the nation’s largest police force.
Immigration enforcement, including taking noncitizens into custody, is the largest single area of responsibility for ICE. ICE detains noncitizens arrested from the interior of the country and those transferred from the border. Twenty-years ago, the average daily population of detained immigrants was approximately 7,000. During the first Trump Administration, it reached a height of 50,000 average daily population. Regardless of the circumstances of their first encounter with authorities, noncitizens are detained across America in a sprawling network of private and public detention facilities. Most of these facilities operate through contracts between ICE (or, less commonly, the U.S. Marshals Service) and localities for the purposes of detaining noncitizens. In some cases, localities later sub-contract services for operating detention facilities to private prison companies. In other instances, localities reserve space in local, county, or state jails and prisons for the purposes of detaining immigrants. In all cases, localities are financially incentivized to detain individuals to increase profit margins from contracts. One key part of the financial equation is the use of noncitizens to clean and maintain facilities in exchange for $1 a day.
Immigration detention facilities, regardless of the type of contracts, have been the sites of serious and repeated allegations of abuse, including allegations of sexual assault, violations of religious freedom, medical neglect, and the punitive use of solitary confinement. In 2020, the U.S. had the highest number of deaths in ICE adult detention since 2005. Several deaths in custody have been found to have been preventable. Conditions in ICE custody have been described as “barbaric” and “negligent” by DHS experts.
Civil immigration detention works mainly to facilitate deportation. While ICE has the authority to allow most noncitizens to continue with their removal cases on the outside of custody, it often defaults to detention based on alleged “flight risk or threat to public safety.” The vagueness of these concepts frequently works against the liberty interests of noncitizens and there is generally a lack of uniformity when it comes to these discretionary releases. Only a certain portion of the overall noncitizen population must be detained under “mandatory detention” laws and even those individuals may be released based on certain exceptions.
Lastly, because immigration detention is considered “civil,” indigent noncitizens are not generally provided counsel. As a result, representation rates for noncitizens in detention are as low as 14% and directly correlate with the ability to secure release or long-term protection.
Reports and Briefings
- "No Human Being Should Be Held There": The Mistreatment of LGBTQ and HIV-Positive People in U.S. Federal Immigration Jails
- Physicians for Human Rights: Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention
- Harvard University Press Release: New Report Documents the Mental and Physical Harm Experienced by Children in Immigration Detention
- AILA Policy Brief: Case Management: An Effective and Humane Alternative to Detention - November 2, 2022
- AILA Policy Brief: Moving The Nation Forward by Leaving Immigration Detention Behind - March 25, 2021
- The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): Emergency Medical Responses at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Centers in California -November 29, 2023
- Notable findings include: a number of EMS calls for pregnant people at Otay Mesa; a shockingly low number of 911 calls for psychiatric emergencies, despite the high number of complaints of serious mental health issues in the detention centers; nearly a third of all detained people had an abnormal vital sign when EMS encountered them, a disturbing trend given the association between abnormal vital signs and deaths in ICE custody; and finally, the number of emergency calls that the authors could find in EMS systems was significantly lower than the number of ICE-reported medical emergencies, a serious discrepancy that calls into question why ICE facilities aren’t calling 911 more frequently when there is an emergency happening.
- Black Alliance for Just Immigration: Uncovering the Truth: Violence and Abuse Against Black Migrants in Immigration Detention - October 2022
- Oxfam America and the Tahirih Justice Center: Surviving Deterrence: How U.S. Asylum Deterrence Policies Normalize Gender-Based Violence, October 11, 2022
- Law Professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, TED Talk, The US can move past immigration prisons—and towards justice, July 27, 2022
- Alternatives to Detention: An Overview – American Immigration Council Fact Sheet, March 17, 2022
- Community Support for Migrants Navigating the U.S. Immigration System - February 26, 2021
- American Immigration Council Special Report: "Measuring In Absentia Removal in Immigration Court," Ingrid Eagly, Esq. and Steven Shafer, Esq. - January 28, 2021
Government Reports
- DHS Office of Inspector General: website has search function to view ICE detention audits, inspections, and evaluations completed by DHS OIG.
- ICE FOIA Library: Holds detention facility contracts, facility reviews, among other required posting information.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO): Agency within the legislative branch that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. Website has search function to view audits done of ICE detention programs and policies.
- Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman Annual Report– June 20, 2023. As of January 29, 2025, the 2024 Annual Report had not been published.
- DHS Office of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Recommendation and Investigation Memo Collection: CRCL investigates abuses in immigration detention. CRCL issues recommendations to the relevant DHS Component aimed at addressing any civil rights or civil liberties concerns identified as part of its investigation.
- DHS Advisory Committee Final Report on Family Residential Centers - September 30, 2016.
Legislative and Administrative Advocacy
- The Case Management Pilot Program: A Humane, Effective Alternative to Immigration Detention - August 15, 2024
- Senators Send Letter Urging Appropriators to Include Funding for ATD - May 15, 2024
- AILA Statement to Senate on ICE's Use of Solitary Confinement - April 16, 2024
- AILA Sends Letter to White House Opposing Family Detention – March 13, 2023
- AILA and Partners Send Letter to White House Urging Closure of ICE Detention Sites - November 21, 2022
- Members of Congress Send Letter to DHS on Access to Counsel - November 3, 2022
- Over 100 House Democrats Send Letter to DHS to Halt Immigration Detention - March 10, 2022
Browse the Featured Issue: Immigration Detention and Alternatives to Detention collection
The Ultimate Act of Motherly Love
I recently visited the Karnes County Residential Center and the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, with the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration and as a CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project volunteer. I have been going to jails and prisons for more than 25 yea
CARA: Family Detention System Fails Indigenous Language-Speaking Families
The CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project filed a formal complaint today with the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Office of Inspector General detailing the serious obstacles indigenous language speakers are facing in procuring access to justice in family detention centers.
Official EOIR Atlanta Stakeholder Meeting Q&As (12/5/16)
Q&As from the postponed 12/5/16 EOIR stakeholder event in Atlanta. Topics include SOPO bonds, inconsistent and improper service of documents, Stewart IC complaint, court recordings, telephonic appearances, EOIR updates, NTAs for child respondents, and filing asylum applications.
Resources on Lawsuit That Aims to Prevent Licensing of Texas Family Detention Centers
A Texas judge issued a final judgment effectively preventing Texas from issuing child care licenses to the South Texas Family Residential Center and the Karnes County Residential Center. (Grasroots Leadership, Inc. v. Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, et al., 12/2/16)
DOJ OIL December 2015 Litigation Bulletin
The DOJ OIL Immigration Litigation Bulletin for December 2015, with articles on Almanza-Arenas v. Lynch, Castaneda v. Souza, and recent amendments to the Visa Waiver Program, as well as summaries of circuit court decisions for December 2015.
When the Narrative Shifts
I joined AILA's Executive Committee with quite a bit of media experience under my belt. One thing I've known for a long time is that the news cycle can turn on a dime and what you may have thought you'd be talking about with a reporter can change, sometimes mid-interview. As an example - AILA's [
ICE Appoints Family Residential Center Federal Advisory Committee Members
ICE announced the list of appointments to the Advisory Committee on Family Residential Centers. The committee’s charter requires that membership consist of up to 15 members, representing a variety of perspectives, to serve in one-year, two-year, or three-year terms.
ICE Notice of Federal Advisory Committee Meeting on Family Detention
ICE notice of a meeting on 12/14/15 with the ICE Advisory Committee on Family Residential Centers in Washington, D.C. to discuss challenges within ICE family residential centers. This meeting will be open to the public and an agenda is included. (80 FR 72451, 11/19/15)
ACLU Practice Advisory on Representing Immigrant Children Following Release from Border Patrol Custody
ACLU provides a practice advisory on representing children following their release from Border Patrol custody. The advisory discusses the history of abuse and neglect by Border Patrol, and encourages attorneys to carefully consider how past mistreatment may impact clients’ eligibility for relief.
BIA Overturns Flight Risk Determination for Recent Arrival
Unpublished BIA decision overturns finding that recent arrival constitutes flight risk and grants $10,000 bond in light of positive credible fear determination and ability to live with other family members in United States. Special thanks to IRAC. (Matter of E-J-E-B-, 11/13/15)
CBP Issues Memo and Muster on Implementation of National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search (TEDS)
CBP released a redacted memo and muster on the implementation of nationwide standards governing the safety and security of those in CBP custody.
Warning: Content Not Safe for Your Peace of Mind
Ana was all of 11 days old when we met at the Berks Detention Center. She was not always the most cooperative client. I don't believe she even bothered to look at me in the two weeks she resided at the detention center. In fact her eyes didn't open at all. She had extremely poor […]
Babies in Jail
“What are they being detained for, spilling milk?“ Those are the words of my friend Dawn when I told her I was volunteering at “baby jail“ for the week. Something about her response struck a nerve with me. To every sane, reasonable person in the U.S., the thought of putting a baby in ja
The Un-American Nature of Prison Bed Quotas
It has never been easy to be an immigration attorney. Faced with combatting injustice without sufficient resources, those of us who represent detained immigrants have seen these challenges increase with the recent hyper-growth of the private prison industry (PPI): 1600% increase in the number of be
An Unforgivable Waste
It was not until I sat on the plane, notebook open, pen in hand, when it hit me. The emotion came; I felt the tightening in my throat and tears forming in the corners of my eyes. It was only now that I could allow myself to fully process what I had just finally witnessed […]
Enforcement Overdrive: A Comprehensive Assessment of ICE's Criminal Alien Program
This American Immigration Council report assesses the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), a massive enforcement program administered by ICE, and examines CAP’s evolution, operations, and outcomes from FY2010 through FY2013.
Legal Access and Legal Visitation Standard Operating Procedures for ICE Family Residential Centers
ICE issued Standard Operating Procedures establishing minimum legal access and legal visitation standards applicable to all ICE Family Residential Centers (FRC) that are active and operational.
CA2 Says Detained Immigrants Must Be Afforded Bond Hearing Within Six Months of Detention
The court held that an immigrant detained pursuant to INA §236(c) must be afforded a bail hearing before an IJ within six months of his or her detention. (Lora v. Shanahan, 10/28/15)
Letter to Texas Officials on Licensing Detention Centers in Dilley and Karnes
On 10/27/15, the CARA Pro Bono Project sent a letter to Texas officials urging the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to deny licenses to ICE for its two family detention centers in Dilley and Karnes, Texas.
Fact Sheet: The Flores Litigation and the Impact on Family Detention
The CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project offers this fact sheet on the Flores litigation, covering the key points from Judge Gee’s ruling concerning the inhumane incarceration of mothers and children fleeing violence and persecution, and what the next steps are in the case.
Government Continues Incarcerating Mothers and Children Despite Judge’s Ruling
The CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project calls on the government to fully comply with Judge Gee’s ruling concerning the inhumane incarceration of mothers and children fleeing violence and persecution; thus far DHS has not taken the steps necessary to comply with today’s deadline.
Senators Urge DHS to Examine Policies that Limit Access to Legal Counsel for Detained Families
On 10/23/15, 19 senators sent DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson a letter urging him to examine ICE’s policies that have barred or limited asylum-seeking mothers and children access to legal representation in Dilley, Texas.
Dilley and Baseball
My recent trip to Dilley, Texas, was a joy, a pleasure, a treat. Not exactly what you would expect me to say in this piece, but in comparison to the hellhole that was Artesia, Dilley was refreshing. Maybe because of the great staff, the routine, the fact that there was not a major crisis the [R
AILA EOIR/OCAHO Liaison Meeting Minutes (10/22/15)
Minutes from the 10/22/15 AILA liaison meeting with EOIR and OCAHO. Topics include use of technology in the courtroom, representation at credible fear reviews, updates on the immigration court backlogs, priority dockets, staffing, communication between ICE and OCAHO, FOIAs, and appeals.
AILA ICE Liaison Committee Meeting Q&As (10/19/15)
AILA ICE Liaison Committee questions and answers from the 10/19/15 liaison meeting with ICE, including information on prosecutorial discretion, OSUP orders, ISAP, bond, stays of removal, family detention, U visas, and recent HSI arrests.