The Biden administration has no plans to restart family immigration detention, according to a senior U.S. immigration official, Tae Johnson, on Tuesday. Johnson, who is

the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), noted that officials had considered jailing families to tackle illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is not being planned "in any way, shape or form." President Joe Biden promised to reverse many of the hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump. Early in 2022, the Biden administration repurposed family detention centers that Trump had tried to expand.

News outlets reported in March that officials were considering resurrecting family detention in preparation for a possible rise in crossings after the expected end of COVID-19 border restrictions on May 11. However, Democrats and immigration advocates criticized the idea, saying it could cause psychological trauma to children and would not effectively deter illegal border crossings.

Instead, ICE will use "alternatives to detention" to monitor parents or heads of households. Johnson also said that ICE was considering a pilot program similar to house arrest, a plan that Reuters reported last year. ICE has identified nine detention centers that could be used for faster initial asylum screenings, Johnson added. Earlier this month, the Biden administration said that it would begin testing sped-up asylum screenings for migrants in the custody of U.S. border authorities. Photo by Tomascastelazo, Wikimedia commons.