In a lengthy report released Thursday, the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights decried unlawful practices and abuse in the nation’s immigrant detention centers [PDF]. The commission expressed particular concern over the treatment of migrant children and families seeking refugee status, thousands of whom are being held in for-profit, prison-like facilities at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds per year.

Martin R. Castro, chairman of the USCCR, said that family detention is “clearly the issue at the forefront” of the report, but added that sexual violence and violations of the rights of LGBT detainees further justify immediate reform by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“Ultimately, a lot of this [misconduct] is driven by the for-profit aspect [of immigration detention]. We recommend that Congress undo that,” he said.

While the world’s attention has recently focused on the refugee crisis in the Maghreb and Europe, Central Americans have continued to flee widespread, drug-related violence and seek safety in the United States. Since October 2014, more than 29,400 families and 30,800 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended at the Southwest border [PDF]. The numbers remain significant, if smaller than they were last summer, when this mass migration — comprising more than 10,500 unaccompanied children just in June 2014 — saw its peak.

Since 2014, the federal government’s primary response to the Central American “humanitarian crisis” has been to put women, children and men coming across the border in existing immigration prisons and hastily built “family detention centers” that lack adequate medical care, food and schooling. The USCCR condemns this practice and calls for the closure of these facilities.

Over 110,000 families have been apprehended by Border Control since 2013: