“This place broke something in us.” I just ask that you don’t forget about us.” A surge in family detention is stripping immigrant children of stability, safety and childhood itself.
Every day, while we go about our routines of work, school and parenting, hundreds of children are being locked away in U.S. immigration detention centers.
Policies to detain the children of undocumented parents have fluctuated across various administrations: In 2021, the practice of family detention was largely halted under the Biden administration, which averaged roughly 25 children in custody per day. However, since the start of the second Trump administration in 2025, child detention has been reinstated and expanded.
By early 2026, the number of children in ICE detention had skyrocketed tenfold, with an average of over 220 children held daily. Many of these children were born in or have lived nearly their entire lives in the United States; they attended daycares and schools, played in local parks and visited libraries. They were simply being kids—until ICE disrupted their inner sanctums of family and security.
The families and children currently held within the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas—a facility run by DHS and operated by the private prison firm CoreCivic—live a starkly different reality.
Conditions may shift under scrutiny—food improved, policies quietly adjusted—but the central reality remains unchanged: Children and families are being held for weeks, months, even hundreds of days in places they do not belong.
Located about 70 miles south of San Antonio, Dilley allows very little public access, yet firsthand accounts from parents and the children themselves have managed to break through the silence. Increased attention from members of Congress and advocates has, at times, forced incremental changes inside facilities like Dilley—underscoring that oversight can matter. But access remains tightly controlled, and even lawmakers report being denied basic information about where children are transferred, released or sent next. Without consistent, independent oversight, families are left in a system that can shift just enough to deflect criticism while continuing to detain those who have committed no crime.
Their brave stories provide a visceral understanding of the trauma and harsh conditions within the center, including homesickness, fear, depression, illness, poor sleep and inadequate food and water. They serve as a witness to the current administration’s immigration policies.
These are their stories.
(Editor’s note: This piece is part of Ms.’ ongoing coverage of family detention and the treatment of immigrant children in federal custody. It follows Rep. Maxine Dexter’s recent oversight visit to Dilley and San Benito, Texas, where her office raised urgent questions about prolonged detention, limited transparency and the routing of pregnant unaccompanied minors to facilities in a state with one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans.)
Homesick and Fearful
Son of Hayam Gamal, 9-year old from Egypt
Letter obtained by The Texas Tribune
“We have been here for nine months. I really miss playing with my toys and my watch. Please get us out of here.”
Gaby M.M, 14-year-old from Colombia
Letter written to ProPublica
“The guards have a bad manner of speaking to residents. … The workers treat the residents unhumanly, verbally and I don’t want to imagine how they would act if they were unsupervised.”
Ariana Velazquez, 14-year-old from Honduras
Interview given to ProPublica
“I’ve been detained for 45 days, and I have never felt so much fear to go to a place as I feel here every time I remind myself that once I go back to Honduras, a lot of dangerous things could happen to my mom and I, my younger siblings haven’t been able to see their mom in more than a month. They’re very young, and you need both of your parents when you’re growing up. Since I got to the center, all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression.”
Gustavo Santiago, 13-year-old from Tamaulipas, Mexico
Interview given to ProPublica
“I have friends, school and family here in the United States. … To this day, I don’t know what we did wrong to be detained. … I feel like I’ll never get out of here. I just ask that you don’t forget about us.”
Suzette Fernandez, 9-year-old from Venezuela
Interview given to ProPublica
“Honestly, honestly, I don’t feel good, because there’s always, always an officer around like bothering me. I can’t go anywhere, and if I need to go to the bathroom, they won’t let me because I have to go with my mom. So it’s annoying, and I just have to stay in my room.”
Deiver Henao Jimenez, 9-year-old from Colombia
Interview given to Ms. Rachel Accurso
Ms. Rachel: “Do you really miss your school and your friends?”
Deiver Henao Jimenez: “Very much. I want to be there, to be happy. Nothing is good here.”
Waiting Without End in a Fluorescent Prison
22-year-old mother of 2-year-old, on their 52nd day at Dilley
Taken from detainee declarations
“The lights are on all night here. My son cries all night almost every night because it is so hard for him to sleep with the lights on. This has been going on for two months straight. I tried to hang a towel up to hide the light from my son, but the supervisors immediately tore it down and threw it away. They said I couldn’t do that.”
14-year-old child with mother, on their 41st day at Dilley
Taken from detainee declarations
“Our room now has 12 people in it. It’s totally packed. We talked to the therapist and guards about moving rooms, and they said we can’t move. It’s very uncomfortable. We can’t sleep. The TV is on high volume all the time.”
The Denial of Basic Life: Toxic Water and Medical Neglect
26-year-old mother of 5-year-old girl, on their 30th day at Dilley
Taken from detainee declarations
“You can’t drink the water here. The smell is bad, and it hurts our stomachs a lot. We have to buy it at the commissary if we have money. In the dining area, there is milk and juice, but there isn’t water. The guards say: ‘This is all that there is. If you don’t like it, buy it at the store.’
Ender, 12-year-old from Venezuela
Letter to ProPublica
“More than 60 days … going to the doctor and that the only thing they tell you is to drink more water and the worst thing is that it seems the water is what makes people sick here.”
26-year-old mother of 8-year-old girl, on their 17th day at Dilley
Taken from detainee declarations
“They say the water is drinkable, but it’s not. We are all without drinking water. It has a fake smell, like perfume or lotion. Maybe it’s chlorine, I don’t know. If you drink it, your stomach hurts so badly. More than anything, I worry for the kids. If you don’t have money, you can’t buy bottled water from the store. Then you just don’t drink water.”
Son of Hayam Gamal, 16-year-old from Egypt
Letter obtained by The Texas Tribune
“I have seen with my own eyes, food that has mold in it. I even saw food with actual worms.”
Kheilin Valero from Venezuela, who was being held with her 18-month-old, Amalia Arrieta
Quoted from ProPublica
After they were detained following an ICE appointment on Dec. 11 in El Paso, Texas, baby Amalia fell ill. For two weeks, she said, medical staff gave her ibuprofen and eventually antibiotics, but Amalia’s breathing worsened to the point that she was hospitalized in San Antonio for 10 days. She was diagnosed with COVID-19 and RSV.
“Because she went so many days without treatment, and because it’s so cold here, she developed pneumonia and bronchitis,” Kheilin said. “She was malnourished, too, because she was vomiting everything.”
The Psychological Costs
Gaby M.M, 12-year-old from Colombia
Letter written to ProPublica
“I feel so much sadness and depression of not being able to leave, it’s really sad to hear that people’s cases are being denied and getting sent back to their countries.”
Son of Hayam Gamal, 16-year-old from Egypt
Letter obtained by The Texas Tribune
“This prolonged detention has and continues to destroy our lives. It is slowly killing us on the inside. … Our mental health is at great risk. It is rapidly deteriorating with every day we spend here. Our lives are without purpose. We are just waiting for this nightmare to end.”
Habiba Gamal, 18-year-old from Egypt
Letter obtained by The Texas Tribune
“In one minute our entire lives were changed and our plans and dreams were destroyed … This place broke something in us. Something that I don’t know if we will ever be able to fix.”
According to ICE detention data, more than 5,600 people, including parents, teens, toddlers and infants, were imprisoned at Dilley between April 7, 2025, and Feb 6, 2026.
In a joint letter to the Trump administration, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association issued a strong warning: “Detention itself poses a threat to child health … and even short periods of detention can cause psychological trauma and long-term mental health risks.”
No amount of improved lighting, cleaner water or better food can justify a system that holds children in confinement for weeks or months at a time. As oversight efforts continue to expose what is happening inside these facilities, one truth remains constant across every account: These children do not belong there. And until that changes, the harm will persist—no matter how it is managed or concealed.
Regardless of citizenship, all children deserve safe and clean environments, freedom from fear and the fundamental freedom to thrive.
