Family detention hits a snag

Early last summer, the Obama administration opened a detention center in the remote town of Artesia, New Mexico, in order to detain Central American women who cross the southern border with their children. The facility was a centerpiece of the administration’s policy of family detention, which aims to “send a message,” as Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson said, that asylum seekers from these countries are not welcome. Federal officials closed the Artesia detention center in December. But this was only because they had opened a 2,400-bed facility in Dilley, Texas, where they planned to detain large numbers of women and children by this summer.

The Century decried family detention in our most recent editorial. In the New York Times Magazine, Wil Hylton called the practice a national shame.

Now the government’s plans have reached at least a temporary halt. A federal judge announced his decision last week to grant an injunction preventing the administration from continuing its practice of locking up women and children who cross the border.