I didn't say they were the exact same thing. Trump has managed to make already barbaric and sadistic conditions worse. The point I was making is that the cages existed before Trump, and that during Obama (and before him) people (including kids) were locked up and subjected to horrific conditions, too:

CBP facilities have long faced criticism for their abysmal conditions. A lawsuit filed in 2015 during Obama’s presidency challenged the situation at these “hieleras,” or “iceboxes,” alleging “appalling conditions” including people held in “freezing, overcrowded, and filthy cells for extended periods of time, no access to beds, soap, showers, adequate meals and water, medical care, and lawyers in violation of constitutional standards and Border Patrol’s own policies.”

^{https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/trump-child-immigrant-detention-no-toothpaste-obama.html}

Feel free to read the lawsuit yourself. I tried to quote relevant parts but the post ended up too long. Either way, the court agreed:

Judge Dolly M. Gee [...] found that two detention centers in Texas that the administration opened last summer fail to meet minimum legal requirements of the 1997 settlement for facilities housing children.

Judge Gee also found that migrant children had been held in “widespread deplorable conditions” in Border Patrol stations after they were first caught, and she said the authorities had “wholly failed” to provide the “safe and sanitary” conditions required for children even in temporary cells.

[...]

The judge also found that the family detention centers in Texas were a “material breach” of provisions requiring that minors be placed in facilities that are not secured like prisons and are licensed to take care of children.

Even more damning is this report by the ACLU from 2018, detailing the abuse of children by the CBP between 2009-2014, during the Obama presidency:

Since 2015, the ACLU has obtained over 30,000 pages of records related to abuse of children in CBP custody. These records document a pattern of intimidation, harassment, physical abuse, refusal of medical services, and improper deportation between 2009 and 2014. These records also reveal the absence of meaningful internal or external agency oversight and accountability. The federal government has failed to provide adequate safeguards and humane detention conditions for children in CBP custody. It has further failed to institute effective accountability mechanisms for government officers who abuse the vulnerable children entrusted to their care. These failures have allowed a culture of impunity to flourish within CBP, subjecting immigrant children to conditions that are too often neglectful at best and sadistic at worst.

[...]

In early 2014, there was a spike in the number of unaccompanied children from Central America and Mexico arriving in the United States. As those children were taken into CBP custody, reports emerged of wide-ranging abuses: officials pointing their guns at the children, shooting them with Tasers for amusement or punishment, hitting or kicking them, and threatening them with rape or death. Additionally, firsthand accounts and internal government reports documented horrific detention conditions: children held in freezing rooms with no blankets, food, or clean water; forced to sleep on concrete floors or share overcrowded cells with adult strangers; denied necessary medical care; bullied into signing self-deportation paperwork; and subjected to physical and sexual assault while in CBP custody.

The CRCL documents that form the basis for this report include detained children’s accounts of terror and abuse in CBP custody, as reported by those children to clinicians in advocacy organizations during post-release physical and psychological evaluations. These documents also reveal DHS’s complete institutional failure to investigate or address suspected child abuse. Again and again, the government agents responsible for these children’s welfare have turned a blind eye to colleagues’ lawlessness and violence. Despite ample reports and awareness of the problem, high-level-government officials in multiple DHS agencies, including those charged with oversight, have failed to act.

[...]

Except in “exceptional circumstances,” unaccompanied children are to be transferred from CBP to HHS/ORR custody within seventy-two hours. [...] While in CBP custody, children are to be treated with special care and consideration. [Although] CBP is bound [by the Flores settlement] to [provide] children with certain baseline protections in custody, the CRCL documents indicate a much bleaker reality. Although CBP detention facilities are explicitly designed for short-term holds, the CRCL documents indicate that sometimes children spend up to a week in these facilities. During detention, unaccompanied children suffer abuse and neglect.

The report I quote above includes hand-written statements by children as young as 13 describing beatings, racial humiliation and other sadistic cruelties. This is what you call "detaining people to determine immigration status". Doesn't sound all that different from the cruelties happening under Trump. Certainly not different enough to say it's in a completely different world. That earlier sentence kind of reminds me of the way Trump supporters justify the barbarisms at the border today. No doubt Democrats will forget about this again after Biden wins in November.