DETENTION — In the early days of his administration, President Biden signed an executive order to phase out the Department of Justice’s use of private prisons. Although the commitment did not apply to the immigrant detention system, immigration advocates in New Jersey successfully closed a number of detention facilities. But as The Washington Post’s Maria Sacchetti reports, not only are detainees being moved to other states, "Officials also have renewed contracts with four Geo Group detention facilities in Florida, Colorado, and Texas, and in September, they signed an agreement to open a women’s detention center in Berks County, Pennsylvania, a county-owned facility that used to house migrant families. ICE also extended its contract with the last detention center in New Jersey, CoreCivic-run Elizabeth Detention Center, company and state court records show." Meanwhile, in the The Texas Tribune, Uriel J. García cites Syracuse University's TRAC data that finds, since October, "a recorded 22,129 immigrants were in ICE detention centers, a 56 percent increase since Biden took office." The detention system, and the private prisons that profit from it, continue to thrive.  

RECONCILIATION REDUX — The latest iteration of immigration provisions in the budget reconciliation bill went to Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough on Wednesday, Suzanne Monyak reports in Roll Call. MacDonough will decide whether provisions that would grant temporary protections for millions of undocumented immigrants adhere to the rule that reconciliation bills "primarily impact the federal budget." In the words of Laura Collins of the George W. Bush Institute, "These are not full immigration reform provisions. They are Band-Aids. They are fixes. They look back on some things that need to be fixed, or that need a repair. They don't move forward with a new, modern immigration system that actually meets the needs of the country."