The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday it will impose a curfew on illegal immigrant parents who jump the border with children and are caught and released into the interior of the country to await their immigration cases.

The families won’t face detention, but the heads of household will be put on ankle monitoring and made to abide by the curfew, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The goal is to try to encourage the families to show up for their deportation hearings.

The program will be tested in four cities, ICE said.

Those who aren’t in the new program will be given other non-detention check-in requirements.

Corey A. Price, head of ICE’s detention and deportation unit, said the goal was to create a “safe and humane” way to encourage the migrants to follow through on their immigration cases.

“Like single adults, noncitizens traveling with their children who do not have a lawful basis to remain in the United States will be quickly removed and barred from reentry for at least five years,” he said.

History suggests that’s not the case.

According to Homeland Security data, of the nearly 700,000 family migrants who arrived illegally in 2018 and 2019, nearly 95% were still in the U.S. last year.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.