Karnes County facility will hold immigrant families

Detainees are escorted to an area to make phone calls as hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center. Detainees are escorted to an area to make phone calls as hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center. Image 1 of / 110 Caption Close Karnes County facility will hold immigrant families 1 / 110 Back to Gallery

Immigration officials will start housing families at the Karnes County Civil Detention Center, a county official confirmed Friday.

“This facility, which is a relatively secure facility, will be used to house these families with children that have been caught at the border,” said Karnes County Judge Richard Butler.

The 608-bed facility operated by The GEO Group Inc. opened in February 2012 and housed “low-risk” male detainees.

Officials said the facility is expected to start housing families by mid-August in response to a steep increase in the numbers of Central American parents caught with children at the border.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman declined comment Friday.

The announcement is the latest effort by the Obama administration to find more detention bed space for tens of thousands of Honduran, Guatemalan and El Salvadoran parents and children caught at the South Texas border this year.

This spring, ICE had only one family detention center in Pennsylvania with the capacity to hold about 90 people.

With so many parents and children caught at the border since October, immigration officials were simply processing families and releasing them at bus stations in South Texas and Arizona with notices to appear in immigration court.

In June, ICE officials opened a temporary, 400-bed shelter for families at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy in Artesia, N.M.

Top Homeland Security officials have said the family detention centers are necessary to send the message that people crossing the border will be held and returned home if they do not have valid legal claims.

But immigrant advocates counter that the government has a poor track record for detaining families, citing poor conditions at a now-shuttered ICE family detention center in Taylor, Texas.

Check back with ExpressNews.com for more about this developing story.

Susan.carroll@chron.com