Wh oput more children in cages, obama, biden, trump

1. Obama: built capacity, used chain-link enclosures but no blanket family-separation prosecution

The Obama administration expanded family detention capacity in response to the 2014 surge of Central American families and employed chain-link processing enclosures that critics labeled “cages,” a characterization contemporaneous reporting recorded ^{[2] [1]}. Scholarly reviews and DHS documents show Obama requested funds and developed detention planning that increased ICE capacity and family detention infrastructure, and while some family separations occurred under Obama, experts and fact-checkers say there was no systematic, blanket policy to criminally prosecute parents that would force mass separations like later practices ^{[5] [3]}.

2. Trump (first term): zero‑tolerance, large-scale separations and intensified child detention

The Trump administration’s 2018 “zero-tolerance” prosecution policy led to the separation of thousands of children from parents and a surge in children routed into shelters and detention after parents were criminally prosecuted, producing intensely visible images and litigation over conditions ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Scholars and advocates document that Flores Settlement violations and other transgressions increased in that period, and reporting links Trump’s policies to a greater scale and a different legal mechanism for detention than under Obama ^{[6] [2]}.

3. Biden: halted routine family detention but detention and removals continued in other forms

The Biden administration largely ended the practice of family detention in 2021 and shifted the use of facilities toward holding adults, a policy change reported across outlets, yet DHS and courts continued to grapple with detention scope and expulsions such as Title 42 and later enforcement choices that increased removals and returns in some periods ^{[2] [4] [7]}. Fact-based reviews credit Biden with stopping routine family detention but document that detention authority and removal activity remained significant, and that later legal and policy shifts under different administrations complicated comparisons ^{[2] [8]}.

4. Legal and factual limits: “cages” vs. numbers, Flores, and courtroom pushback

The shorthand “who put more children in cages” collapses distinct facts into a single image: chain‑link enclosures existed during Obama (the term “cages” was used contemporaneously) but Trump’s policies produced unprecedented parent prosecutions that directly increased separations and child placements into shelters ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Academic work finds Flores Agreement violations across administrations but argues those violations intensified under Trump ^[6]. Federal judges have repeatedly pushed back on expansive detention approaches, including recent refusals to accept Trump-era mandatory detention doctrines, underscoring that litigation and judicial limits affect how many children can be detained at any time ^[8].

5. Conclusion: context matters — Trump’s policy produced the largest surge in separations and child detention, but Obama built capacity and Biden stopped routine family detention

Synthesizing the reporting: while Obama expanded detention infrastructure and used enclosures that drew the “cages” label, the Trump administration’s zero‑tolerance prosecution and subsequent mass-detention practices produced the most dramatic increase in children separated and held as a direct result of policy choices; the Biden administration formally halted routine family detention in 2021 and shifted practices, though detention and deportation activity continued in other forms and later administrations again expanded detention capacity ^{[5] [2] [3] [4]}. The sources provided do not supply a single authoritative numeric comparison of total children detained across the three presidencies, so this conclusion rests on documented policy differences, litigation records, and contemporaneous reporting rather than an absolute headcount ^{[6] [1]}.