As we ramp up for Mother’s Day in the United States, children in this country are being locked up in immigration detention—not just as policy, but as part of a growing, for-profit system.
American tax dollars are subsidizing this extension of collective punishment to the youngest among us, including babies and toddlers, here at home.
Making it possible is the $45 billion cash infusion U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received from Congress last year for detention operations. Over 90 percent of facilities are privately run.
One ICE corporate partner, CoreCivic, reported $2.5 billion in 2025 revenue, including $180 million from its Dilley Immigration Processing facility, the sole destination for U.S. warehousing of families. Dilley is where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was sent after ICE agents detained him and his father outside their Minnesota home—galvanizing Americans aghast by the image of a child in a bunny hat taken into federal custody.
But Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were not alone. This month, Human Rights First and RAICES published a new report, “A New Era of ICE Family Prisons,” documenting the unjust, prolonged and abusive detention of over 5,600 children and parents at Dilley since the Trump administration reopened it in April 2025.
Extensive interviews of detained families reveal patterns of harm and denial of due process that shock the conscience and demand accountability. Meanwhile, 121 pregnant, postpartum and nursing women were detained in ICE custody as of February 2026.
Children belong in school, not detention, and with their moms and dads. Together, we can shutter the Dilley facility, and let immigrant families live their lives in dignity.
