Trailers have been set up for a school at a federal immigration detention center in Artesia, N.M., an isolated desert town. A basketball court and a soccer field have been installed. And detainees are pleading their cases over a video link with judges in Denver.

Officials say that the facility, billed as a temporary place to house women and children from Central America who were among a wave of immigrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally this year, could remain open until next summer.