Were 'cages' used for holding migrant children during Obama's presidency and what investigations examined that?

1. What the photographs and contemporaneous reporting actually showed

Multiple widely circulated images from 2014 depicted unaccompanied minors or migrants behind chain‑link partitions at facilities converted from warehouses or holding areas in places like McAllen and Nogales, and news outlets and the government explained those images as showing temporary processing/holding areas used during a surge in arrivals that year ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.

2. “Built cages” is a shorthand — not a literal building project in isolation

Senior officials and later fact‑checks noted that chain‑link barriers, partitions and fenced enclosures were used at border processing sites under Obama, and former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson explicitly acknowledged that such barriers existed before 2017, arguing they were not invented by the Trump administration ^[3]. Reporting and fact‑checks caution that saying “Obama built the cages” compresses context: these facilities were part of ad hoc responses to capacity crises as arrivals spiked, not a singular secret project invented at one moment ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

3. Who was held there, for how long, and the legal framework

The 2014 surge primarily involved unaccompanied children and families fleeing Central America; the Obama White House described a government‑wide response and use of emergency measures to process and repatriate migrants while working with partners in the region ^[6]. Advocacy groups and legal monitors documented that family detention expanded in 2014–2016 and criticized lengthy holds and conditions for mothers and children, even as statutory rules required certain transfers ^{[5] [7] [6]}.

4. Investigations, reports and oversight that examined conditions

Congressional and watchdog scrutiny, NGO reports, and media investigations examined deaths in custody, use‑of‑force and detention conditions during the Obama years; Human Rights Watch and medical experts reviewed detainee deaths and detention standards, and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations produced reporting on the Office of Refugee Resettlement and protections for unaccompanied children ^{[8] [9]}. Scholarship and policy analyses (e.g., Center for Migration Studies) assessed Obama‑era detention reforms and reversals, and news outlets explained 2014 photos and cited official statements and tours of facilities ^{[7] [2] [1]}.

5. Competing interpretations and the political argument

Advocates and many reporters say the Obama administration used fenced enclosures that looked like “cages” and expanded family detention in response to a humanitarian crisis, documenting harm and calling for reform ^{[5] [7]}. Political defenders of later administrations point to differences in scale and in the Trump-era “zero tolerance” family separations as a new policy turning point, while fact‑checkers emphasize nuance: chain‑link enclosures existed previously but the family‑separation program and its scale under Trump represented a distinct shift ^{[4] [9] [3]}.

6. Bottom line and limits of the record

The record shows that chain‑link partitions and fenced holding areas—described by many as “cages”—were used in 2014 at border processing facilities during the Obama administration amid a surge of migrant arrivals, and that multiple oversight reports, NGO reviews and media investigations examined detention practices and deaths in custody during that period ^{[1] [2] [8] [9] [7]}. Sources differ about emphasis: some stress that physical enclosures predated 2017, others underscore that policy choices—especially the family‑separation and zero‑tolerance directives later—created qualitatively different practices; the materials provided document the existence of fenced enclosures and numerous investigations but do not resolve debates about equivalence across administrations ^{[3] [4] [7]}.