One of the most contentious immigration policies in recent decades has been the detention of undocumented immigrant families.

Now the Trump administration plans to detain thousands more in an effort to crack down on border crossings, as well as legal pathways to asylum.

John Yang has more. John?

The Biden administration largely ended the practice of detaining families, but President

Trump is bringing it back.

In recent weeks, the Department of Homeland Security has prepared facilities near the southern

border to detain families.

Advocates have raised concerns about the living conditions and how long families will be

held in detention.

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer at The Atlantic where she covers immigration policy.

Caitlin, how big a role is family detention going to play in the Trump policy?

I think this expansion of family detention is pretty significant, but certainly it's one of

myriad tools that

the administration is using to kind of attack, if you will, this issue of immigration from

every direction. So, you know, detaining families for a prolonged period of time is something

that Trump's borders are. Tom Homan has indicated he thinks is

important to try to end this practice that he calls catch and release, where immigrants and

immigrant families are allowed to roam freely as their cases are processed. I want to point out,

though, that's not the only goal of expanding family detention, right? Ice has other tools for that.

They use a cell phone app that they can track people's whereabouts with. They also use GPS

ankle monitors, and that helps to ensure that they can carry out deportations if ordered by a judge.

But I think this expansion of family detention is also part of a publicity

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