Several Senate Democrats penned a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson about their opposition to the creation of the largest immigrant detention facility in the country.

The ten Senate Democrats wrote to Johnson regarding plans to expand the immigration detention system with the establishment of the detention center in Dilley, Texas. The Democrats also urged the Obama administration to ensure detainees' "physical safety" and due process rights are properly administered, especially those seeking asylum in the U.S.

The letter to Johnson includes the senators acknowledging the "drastic increase" of unaccompanied, undocumented minors crossing over the U.S. border, which as a result, presented "significant challenges" for the Obama administration. Despite the understanding of the influx of immigrants, the senators wrote they were "deeply concerned with the decision to build the Dilley detention center that will detain women and children.

"This decision threatens to make permanent a practice of presumptive detention for families and marks a reversal of this administration's family detention policy. We fear that the result will be the ongoing detention of asylum-seeking women and children who have shown a credible fear of being returned to their home country and pose no flight risk or danger to the community," the Senate letter to Johnson stated, adding the consequences of long-term detention of the minors could present mental and physical well-being concerns.

As Latin Post reported, U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced plans to create the 2,400-bed family detention center in Dilley, located approximately 70 miles southwest of San Antonio. In late September, Women's Refugee Commission's Migrant Rights and Justice Program Director Michelle Brané told Latin Post the Dilley facility will cost nearly $300 per day per person, or up to $260 million every year. She added that the Obama administration claimed to have insufficient funds for blankets for detained immigrant children but continued to spend millions on a new detention center for people seeking protection.

"Many of the women and children in ICE's new detention facilities are asylum seekers who are traumatized and fleeing violence and abuse in their home countries," Brané said. "Rather than invest hundreds of millions of dollars in new facilities to arbitrarily detain families, the Administration should consider alternatives to detention that better serve the mental and physical well-being of vulnerable families that have fled from some of the most dangerous parts of the world in search of safety."

The letter recognized the humanitarian and lawful concerns in existing family detention centers in Artesia, New Mexico and Karnes, Texas, which ranged from the center's conditions and appropriate due process procedures.

"The rushed nature of expedited review has led to indications that the due process rights of these women and children are being denied and that those with valid claims for asylum may be removed to countries where they could be at risk of persecution," the senators wrote. "These problems are exacerbated by the obstacles to meaningful access to counsel for families being held in often-isolated detention centers."

The 10 senators agreed that the best method to protect border security and an individual's due process is to implement an immigrant detention system that individualizes a case-by-case review.

"Mothers and their children who have fled violence in their home countries should not be treated like criminals. They have come seeking refuge from three of the most dangerous countries in the world, countries where women and girls face shocking rates of domestic and sexual violence and murder," the senators added.

According to Roll Call, a DHS spokesperson said Johnson will "directly" respond to the senators. The 10 Democratic senators that signed the letter are Harry Reid of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chuck Schumer of New York, Patty Murray of Washington, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Colorado's Michael Bennet and Mark Udall.

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