ICE to close controversial immigration detention center in New Mexico
The Obama administration confirmed Tuesday it is closing a controversial family detention center it had quickly set up in a remote New Mexico community this summer following a surge of Central American children and parents crossing the southwest border.
By the end of next month, any detainees remaining in Artesia will be moved to one of two family immigration detention centers in Texas, including a massive new one planned for Dilley, a small city south of a San Antonio.
The retrofitted Federal Law Enforcement Training Campus in Artesia — its dormitories housed U.S. Border Patrol trainees — was holding 188 adults and 231 children Tuesday. Most are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries wracked by poverty and gang violence.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed their plans in an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday morning after the newspaper requested a tour of the detention center in New Mexico. ICE is planning to make its plans public this afternoon.
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Jeremy Redmon is an award-winning journalist, essayist and educator with more than three decades of experience reporting for newspapers.
