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The Associated Press report describes a sharp increase in family immigration detention at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, and it details disputes over how long children are held and how medical care is provided. AP said many families sent to Dilley are not newly arrived, and it cited parents’ accounts that the environment and access to care have left children and adults under severe stress.
AP said the number of children held under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention rose during the early months of the Trump administration, using an analysis of data from the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. The report said ICE booked more than 3,800 children into detention during the first nine months, and it said that on an average day more than 220 children were being held. AP also said the agency’s decisions about where children go have meant that most children detained for longer than 24 hours are sent to Dilley, and that more than half of Dilley detainees in the early part of the Trump administration were children.
The report also said the flow of detainees to Dilley rose sharply after the facility reopened. AP said that since Dilley was reopened last spring, the number of people detained there increased sharply and reached more than 1,300 in late January, citing researchers. AP added that nearly two-thirds of children detained by ICE in the early months of the Trump administration were eventually deported.
A central focus of the AP account is how long children are held relative to a 20-day limit that comes from a longstanding court order. AP reported that the government is holding many children at Dilley beyond that limit, and it said Children’s Rights director Leecia Welch, who visits the facility to monitor compliance, described using 100 days as a benchmark because of how often children are exceeding 20 days. In a statement attributed in the report, Welch said that during a visit this month she counted more than 30 children who had been held for over 100 days.
AP also described changes in the kinds of families being detained. It said that when the Obama administration opened Dilley in 2014, nearly all families detained there had recently crossed the border from Mexico, but that many of the people now sent to the facility have lived in the United States for several years. Lawyers and other observers cited by AP said this means children can be uprooted from school, neighborhoods, and people who care for them, even when detention occurs away from the families’ longer-established communities.
Parents and children who spoke to AP described alleged problems inside Dilley, including medical and daily-life issues. One mother told AP that a 13-year-old girl cut herself with a plastic knife after staff withheld prescribed antidepressants and denied her request to join her mother down the hall. Another mother described a case involving her 1-year-old daughter, whom she said developed a high fever and vomited and was repeatedly offered acetaminophen and ibuprofen before she was eventually admitted to hospitals with bronchitis, pneumonia, and stomach viruses; AP said ICE disputed her account and said the baby “immediately received proper care.”
AP also reported more routine difficulties described by other families, including challenges in getting children to sleep in quarters where lights remain on all night and stomach aches attributed to foul drinking water. It added that adults and children described the overall stress of detention that they said has caused many to despair.
In response to the report, DHS and ICE denied allegations of poor care and conditions. AP said DHS did not respond to detailed questions it submitted about Dilley, but it said both DHS and ICE issued statements refuting the allegations raised in the week’s coverage. ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement that the Dilley facility is “a family residential center designed specifically to house family units in a safe, structured and appropriate environment,” and AP reported that ICE said Dilley provides medical screenings and infant care packages, along with classrooms and recreational spaces.
AP said a CoreCivic spokesman also responded to questions from the AP, saying that no child at Dilley “has been denied medical treatment or experienced a delayed medical assessment.” The company said detainees receive comprehensive care from medical and mental health professionals, according to AP.
AP further linked the increase in family detention to concerns about oversight. The report said the Trump administration has gutted an office responsible for oversight of conditions inside Dilley and other facilities, and it said investigators in years past found problems at Dilley, including inadequate staffing and disregard for trauma caused by detention. AP also said a special committee recommended family detention be discontinued except in rare cases, that the Biden administration began phasing it out in 2021, and that Dilley closed in 2024—before the Trump administration reopened the facility and reversed course.