Immigrants in Texas freed by ICE
Move runs counter to 'zero release' claims
By: Lauren Villagran
USA Today
..... Despite vowing "zero release," the Trump administration has begun quietly releasing dozens of immigrate families from a Texas detention center after detaining but not deporting them.
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U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement released some 160 detained people - half of them minor - to a border shelter beginning Janaury17, [2026] with plans to release as many as 100 to 150 per day over the next two the tree weeks, according to the shelter director and other sources with direct knowledge of the releases.
..... The reason for the releases remains unclear, but the families hail from nearly a dozen countries including Iran, Russia, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Guatemala and Mexico.
..... The sudden release run counter to President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign, which seeks to remove millions of immigrants living in the country legally.
.....Pastor Mike Smith of the nonprofit Holding Institute, a shelter affiliated with United Methodist Church and United Women in Faith, received the families on January 17 and January 19 [2026] in Laredo, Texas.
..... Many of the parents had been detained by ICE with their children after attending their required immigration court hearings, Smith said. Several told him that had been detained for weeks, or more than a month.
..... A 1997 court order known as the Floress Settlement Agreement guides rules for detaining children, including with their families and generally requires they not be held more than 20 days.
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"They have strong family and community ties and employment that they want to go back to," smith said.
..... The Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Immigration arrests have surged over the past year, [2025] but Homeland Security, under Kristi Noem's leadership, has struggled to keep pace with deportations. The number of immigrants held in detention has ballooned as a result.
..... "What President Trump and our CBP agents and officers have been able to do in a single year is nothing short of extraordinary" Noem said in a January 16 [2026] post on X, before ICE began the detention release. "Once again, we have a record low number of encourages at the border and the 8th straight month of zero releases."
..... The administration's "zero releases' promise is central to the president's immigration enforcement strategy. Trump and Republicans skewered former President Joe Biden for releasing millions of immigrant in to the country on humanitarian grounds.
..... To avoid releasing immigrants, the Trump administration last year [2025] suspended the right to seek asylum at the border and ordered mitigation judges to refuse bond to detained immigrants, among other policy recommendations.
..... However, Smith confirmed to USA today that, for months, ICE has also released individuals to them on occasion, typically those with extenuating circumstances, such as illness or medical need. But the number were low, in the single digits.
..... The release also raise questions about the administration's motives, said Jennie Murry, president of the National Immigration Forum, which represents faith and law-enforcement organization on immigration policy.
..... "Is there a capacity violation [such as overcrowding]? Or does the individual case prove the family shouldn't be deported?" she aisled. "Hopefully, it's a sign the rule of law is working."
..... ICE bused the first group of families to the Laredo shelter late January 17 [2026] from the 2,400-bed South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, which is operated by a private company, CoreCivic.
..... Smith said several detainees described overcrowding in some dormitories.
..... Some described begin detained for an extended period with their children, shuffled between holding facilities, he said. Many of the adults, but not all, were outfitted with ankle monitors upon their release, eh said. Many were similarly outfitted during the Biden administration.
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As to the motivation behind the releases, Smith said. "My best hope is that there are officials in detention centers that are serving their better angels."
..... Migrant shelters along the border, often run by church communities, played a critical role during past years of high migration, offering a cot and a hot meal to migrants and families in need.
..... But dozens of refuges close down last year [2025] after the Trump administration slashed their funding, amid unproven accusations the nonprofit and faith-based organization were illegally harboring or trafficking migrants. At the same time, migration all but dried up at the Southwest border, so others sheltered because their services weren't needed.
..... The Trump administration reopened the Dilley family detention center, which lies about an hour south of San Antonio.
..... Child advocates have decried the long-term, traumatizing effects of detention on children's physical and metal well-being.
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In 2025, the Trump administration sought to nullify the Flores settlement that protects children form prolonged detention, arguing it repentants an outdated constraint on immigration enforcement. A federal judge in August 2025 denied the administration's request.
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More immigrants are being detained under Trump than at any point in American history since the interment of people of Japanese, Italian and German ancestry during World War II.
..... There were nearly 69,000 people in ICE detention, according ICE data published January 7. [2026] The number has been climbing consistently since Trump took office. There were roughly 38,000 people in ICE detention in early January 2025 at the close of the Biden administration.
..... Congress last year [2025] authorized $45 billion in funding to expand ICE detention.
..... "The surge in spending in the One Big Beautiful Bill has really transformed who is being detained and why," said Murry, of the National Immigration Forum. "I'm not sure people understand that for the first time, noncriminal immigrants way outweigh the criminals in custody."