IMMIGRATION

Largest Detention Center in U.S. Opens

Holds up to 2,400 people.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson opened the nation’s largest family detention center used to hold unauthorized immigrants in Dilley, Texas, on Monday. The South Texas Family Residential Center, which can hold as many as 2,400 people, was previously a camp for oilfield workers 100 miles north of the Mexican Rio Grande border. The center will be mainly used to house women and children, and the first residents are expected to arrive in the next few weeks from a Border Patrol camp in Artesia, New Mexico. The Corrections Corporation of America will be managing the facility, costing $296 per person to run each day. Johnson also used the inauguration to decry congressional Republicans, who he said failed to fully finance his department in last week’s budget bill.