Policy Statement on the Incarceration of Undocumented Migrant Families: Society for Community Research and Action Division 27 of the American Psychological Association

In the summer of 2014, the US government massively expanded its detention of immigrant families-particularly mothers with young children-at least in part mobilized by an effort to respond to an increase in the number of families apprehended at or near the United States-Mexico border. According to a recent report issued by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) and the Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) (Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services & Women's Refugee Commission (LIRS amp; WRC), 2014, October), since 2011, the number of families from Central America risking their lives to cross into the United States has increased steadily. Between October of 2013 and September of 2014, the US government apprehended 68,334 children accompanied by a parent at the southwest border, representing a 361% increase in the number of family apprehensions over the previous fiscal year, and more than half of all the children who entered family detention in Fiscal Year 2014 were 6 years old or younger (Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services & Women's Refugee Commission (LIRS & WRC), 2014, October). This increase parallels the deeply related increase in unaccompanied minors whose numbers spiked in the spring and summer of 2014. Both sets of migrants form part of a regional trend of increased requests for refugee status by for those fleeing the northern triangle of Central America (i.e., Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) and Mexico. As has been widely reported, these families and children are fleeing violence, domestic and/or family abuse, and dangerous gang-related activity from which their governments have been unable to protect them (Stinchcomb & Hershberg, 2014). In fact, The Guardian reported 45 cases of US deportees who have been murdered on their return to El Salvador, 3 in Guatemala, and 35 in Honduras since January 2014 (Brodzinsky & Pilkington, 2015; October 12). While the United States upholds itself as a beacon of hope for those seeking freedom from persecution and oppression, the current US immigration policies and their enforcement have detrimental effects on migrant adults, children, families, and communities (Brabeck, Lykes & Hunter, 2014). The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) practice of detaining families on a "no bond, no release" policy has been widely criticized and successfully challenged in court. Foley (2015a), June 2) reported that in May, 33 of the 44 senators in the Democratic caucus wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson advocating the abolition of immigrant family detention except in extreme circumstances. The letter followed a similar one written by 136 of the 188 House Democrats the previous week, as well as numerous pleas from human rights groups to eliminate the practice. A federal judge in the District of Columbia, in the case of RILR v. Johnson (Civil action No. 15-11-D.D.C. February 20, 2015) issued an order prohibiting DHS from "detaining class members [of families who are found to have a credible fear of persecution in their home country and are eligible for release] for deterring future immigration to the United States and from considering deterrence of such immigration as a factor in such custody determinations" (American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU), 2015). Similar critiques have been mounted against the unusually-and in many cases prohibitively-high bonds imposed by DHS for families (Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services & Women's Refugee Commission (LIRS & WRC), 2014). We assert that there is no way to humanely detain children and families. As set forth in more detail below, we: Urge the government to close all of its family detention facilities; Recommend the improvement of the screening procedures to identify families in need of protection, and the revision of US policy of high bonds for migrant families, especially those seeking refuge in the United States; Call on the government to implement several costeffective alternatives to detention that are successful in ensuring that migrant families appear for scheduled court hearings; Call on our professional organizations to better prepare professionals in order to address the needs of these migrants and to collaborate in the development of public education campaigns about their fate and the need for policy reform.