Did the Obama Biden administration build cages for illegal children
Executive summary
Yes — facilities with chain‑link enclosures often described as “cages” were built and used during the Obama‑Biden years, particularly during the 2014 surge of unaccompanied minors, but that factual point is distinct from the Trump administration’s later, systematic “zero‑tolerance” policy that led to mass family separations; the word “cage” is contested and the two administrations’ practices and policies were not identical [1] [2] [3].
1. The concrete claim: structures existed and were built in 2014
Reporting across fact‑checks and news outlets documents that in 2014 the Obama administration converted facilities — including warehouses and temporary chain‑link enclosures at border processing sites such as McAllen and Nogales — to hold large numbers of migrant children arriving unaccompanied, and those structures were described contemporaneously as cages or chain‑link enclosures [1] [4] [2].
2. Why those facilities were created: a surge of unaccompanied minors
The conversions and temporary enclosures were a response to a surge in unaccompanied children arriving at the southern border in 2014; sources describe the enclosures as temporary holding spaces used to process and transfer children to Health and Human Services custody within the statutory 72‑hour window governing unaccompanied minors [1] [2].
3. The language dispute: “cage” is accurate to some and inflammatory to others
Multiple fact‑checks note that calling chain‑link enclosures “cages” reflects a descriptive reality reported at the time but is also a subjective, politicized term; officials such as former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson acknowledged chain‑link barriers existed while others and many news analyses stress that the term carries a rhetorical weight that has been used to criticize later policies [2] [3] [5].
4. Policy differences matter: Obama-era use vs. Trump’s zero‑tolerance separations
Although some facilities predated President Trump and were reused, the scale and cause of family separation under Trump were different: the Obama administration’s detentions of children were largely tied to unaccompanied minors and to limited safety‑or‑criminality separations, while the Trump administration implemented a prosecution policy that systematically separated families as a deterrent, producing far broader and more controversial family separations [2] [6] [3].
5. Political framing and accountability: who is responsible for what
Political actors on both sides have used the overlap in facilities to shift blame — critics point out the physical structures existed under Obama, while advocates emphasize that reuse of preexisting facilities does not erase policy choices that expanded separations; mainstream fact‑checks and news analyses conclude that it is true Obama‑era facilities existed and were reused, but misleading to equate that fact with the Trump administration’s distinct policy of systematic family separation [7] [3] [6].
6. Limits of the available reporting
The assembled sources document the existence and reuse of chain‑link enclosures and also compare policy differences between administrations, but they do not provide a comprehensive inventory of all sites, construction contracts, or a complete legal history of every transfer decision; where the sources are silent, this analysis does not speculate beyond the documented reporting [1] [4].