SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - President Trump’s executive order will have an effect on immigration facilities, but officials have yet to specify.
Southwest Key has three unaccompanied immigrant children facilities housing roughly 100 kids in San Diego.
10News reached out to Southwest Key on the possibility of their center holding adults as well, but has not received a comment.
A recent permit request shows Otay Mesa Detention Center has intentions of expanding — adding 512 beds in a new more than 60,000 square foot building.
Officials tell 10News those plans were conceived in 2015 before the current immigration issues and they would not allow children to be housed without adult supervision.
Immigration attorney Esther Valdes says she expects Trump’s order to affect her job in immigration court.
“It could happen this way for example; yes, he family is reunifed but now mom or dad are going to have a swift or speedy trial,” said Valdes, “it’s not going to be 6 months of evidentiary hearings — it could be 2 weeks.”
Valdes says her clients break down in tears at the prospect of seeing their kids again.
“They want nothing more than to be with their families,” say Valdes, “for them it’s worth being in the hands of the American people in a detention center and availing themselves of the judicial process to follow a better life here in America.”
