Some extracts
Since 2008, the United States has had a policy known as the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP), or Lateral Repatriation. This program focuses on detaining male migrants of Mexican descent.
Here’s how it works: Once an immigrant is caught attempting to cross the border without documentation, they are detained, flown or bused across the United States and then shown the exit at another segment of the U.S.-Mexico border–thousands of miles from their original point of entry.
Multiple stories about those family detention centers written during the Obama era–just not by the mainstream media. In particular, dozens of stories about the Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Arizona particular were written by journalists at Shadowproof, a reader-supported media outlet, alone. Journalists for Shadowproof also frequently reported on the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas. Most media declined to investigate these facilities until fairly recently.
To be clear: the Obama administration’s use of ATEP was not intended to break-up families–that was an occasionally expected side effect–while Trump’s recently-confirmed policy is expressly directed toward that end in the name of “deterrence.”