The Obama Administration announced this week the opening of the nation's largest family immigration detention center in the rural southern Texas town of Dilley.

The center is being converted from a former oil field workers camp and being prepared as authorities brace for another influx of mothers and children from across the U.S. border.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will move families already living at the Artesia, New Mexico detention center. Artesia, which has housed as many as 700 people, has been beset by scandals over claims of lack of due process for scores of Central American women and children.

"ICE opened the temporary facility in Artesia in June as a critical piece of the government's response to the unprecedented influx of adults with children at the Southwest border. Since then, the numbers of illegal migrants crossing into south Texas has gone down considerably," acting ICE Director Thomas S. Winkowski said in a statement. "However, we must be prepared for traditional, seasonal increases in illegal migration. The Dilley facility will provide invaluable surge capacity should apprehensions of adults with children once again surge this spring."

In late August, the NILC, ACLU, American Immigration Council and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild sued the U.S. government for the mishandling of the detained Artesia women and children's legal due process.

The 50-acre compound in Dilley has 80 tan, two-bedroom, one bathroom cottages about 70 miles southwest of San Antonio.

"With the opening of the Dilley facility, ICE will have the initial capacity to house up to 480 residents but the ultimate capacity to house up to 2,400 individuals," Winkowski said. "These facilities help ensure timely and effective removals that comply with our legal and international obligations, while deterring others from taking the dangerous journey and illegally crossing into the United States."

The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley is the fourth facility the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has used to house women and children who enter the country illegally. ICE continues to use a newly modified residential center in Karnes City, Texas, and a long-standing facility in Leesport, Pennsylvania, to house adults with children.

The residential center at Karnes is also at the center of lawsuit over accusations of sexual assault and harassment.

The Dilley Detention Center will received about 30 immigrants in the coming weeks according to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, with construction to be completed around May.

Women and children will remain there until they are deported, released on bond or begin immigration court proceedings that could allow them to say in the U.S. ICE said 70 percent of immigrant families released into the U.S. never show up for follow-up appointments, and it is one of the reasons it is adding detention capacity.

Johnson stressed to The Associated Press that despite President Obama's announcement on immigration reform, anyone who crossed the border illegally into the U.S. this year remains a priority for deportation.

"This must be clear: Our borders are not open to illegal migration," Johnson said.