President Joe Biden is reportedly considering a policy from the Trump era that would hold migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border in detention facilities — a move which would likely draw the ire of progressive Democrats and immigration advocates.
If Biden were to reinstate this policy, he would be breaking a reported pledge from his 2020 presidential campaign.
"Locking immigrant families and children into cages along the border is dangerous, ineffective, and wrong," Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas said Tuesday. "It is dangerous and wrong to incarcerate refugee children, regardless of political party."
Casar had been reacting to the Biden story in The New York Times, regarding the possibility of reviving Trump's detainee policy.
However, it's also worth noting: President Barack Obama invoked a similar policy during his own presidency, which included Biden as vice president for two terms.
"We can't go back," said Casar, a freshman congressman whose campaign was backed by Justice Democrats, according to The Hill.
Casar expressed concerns that Biden could be "caving to anti-immigrant fear mongering," with the revised detainee policy.
He also wasn't the only left-leaning official rankled by the Times report.
"It's infuriating," Setareh Ghandehari told The Hill.
Ghandehari, the advocacy director at the pro-immigration coalition Detention Watch Network, is also worried that Biden may be breaking his progressive-heavy pledges now, as a means of enhancing his national profile ahead of the 2024 election.
Biden "specifically made several statements condemning [former President Donald] Trump's use of family detention and family separation and promised to do something different and specifically end family detention," said Ghandehari. "And what we've seen is a continual walking back of his promises."
A recent survey conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed the country's division on the issue of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.
For the AP/NORC poll, 4 out of 10 respondents prefer the number of people seeking asylum in the U.S. be eased, while 2 out of 10 would like to see more stringent requirements for asylum-seekers.
"It is unacceptable that this administration would even consider going back to the Trump-era policies that caused so much harm and trauma to children and families," Rep. Chuy García, D-Ill., wrote in a statement.
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security crafted a new rule that would limit which migrants can apply for asylum at the border — another bone of contention for left-leaning voters and lawmakers.
In a conversation with reporters last week, Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-Calif., the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair, said her group has been working with the Congressional Tri-Caucus on a statement to formally oppose the Biden administration's new rule.
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