A top immigration official at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday explained that family detention centers are “more like summer camp” than a jail in the wake of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy to deter migrants from illegally entering the United States that has separated children from their parents.
When asked to describe the detention centers in which migrant children and their parents are being held, Matthew Albence, executive associate director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told the Senate Judiciary Committee that ICE’s family detention centers are “like a summer camp.”
“These individuals have access to 24/7 food and water,” said Matthew Albence, ICE’s head of enforcement and removal operations. “They have educational opportunities. They have recreational opportunities, both structured as well as unstructured. There’s basketball courts, there’s exercise classes, there’s soccer fields that we put in there. They have extensive medical, dental, and mental health opportunities. In fact, many of these individuals, the first time they’ve ever seen a dentist, is when they’ve come to one of our centers.”
Lawmakers and journalists who have visited some detention facilities around the country and migrants themselves have reported poor conditions.
According to a report from the Marshall Project, 2,342 children were separated from 2,206 adults over just a one-month period recently and there have been persistent allegations of insufficient medical attention and sexual abuse. The Marshall Project is an independent nonprofit news site that covers criminal justice issues.
