In early August, the number of people in immigration detention in the U.S. surged to an all-time high of more than 60,000. Behind that number is an incipient human rights crisis.
While the Trump administration waited for massive new detention centers to open, it turned to federal prisons and jails, hastily constructed state facilities, and temporary holding cells that were never meant to house people for any extended amount of time.
The overcrowding, combined with negligence and malevolence, has led to inevitable abuses that are too large to ignore or deny.
