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A Texas detention center that holds immigrant families has become the focus of fresh complaints about how long children remain detained and how they are treated during confinement, the Associated Press reported. In interviews and accounts presented to the outlet, families and advocates described distress, disruptions to routine, and alleged medical and mental-health failures at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in south Texas.
The AP’s reporting portrays detention at Dilley as a setting where children can lose normal stability, with some families saying their children repeatedly asked why they were being held and told parents they feared for release. Several of those families described day-to-day conditions—such as interrupted sleep, limited schooling, and difficulty getting care—that they said worsened anxiety and illness during their time in custody.
One mother, who asked for anonymity because she feared it could affect her case, told the AP that her daughter, who had already been traumatized before detention, spiraled into crisis while at Dilley. The AP reported that the girl, described as 13, wept and pleaded for answers about what she had done to deserve detention, and that her husband was deported soon after the family was taken into custody. The AP said the family was ultimately freed after weeks in the facility and that, once released, the mother and daughter faced the task of reestablishing school and work in their home community.
The AP also tied the complaints to a broader pattern of longer detentions that began intensifying after Dilley reopened under President Donald Trump’s administration, the outlet said. The AP reported that since Dilley’s reopening last spring, the number of detained families rose sharply, that the government held many children beyond the 20-day limit set by longstanding court order, and that detained families often had long-term ties in the United States. Philip Schrag, a Georgetown law professor and author of “Baby Jails,” told the AP that being in detention meant being placed in a “completely strange environment with the doors locked,” after previously being in familiar surroundings.
As part of that context, the AP cited data analysis showing the scale of child detentions and the role Dilley has played in housing children. The outlet reported that ICE booked more than 3,800 children into detention during the first nine months of the new Trump administration, and that on an average day more than 220 children were held. The AP said most of those children detained longer than 24 hours were sent to Dilley, and that more than half of Dilley detainees in that period were children.
The AP said that children’s rights monitoring has highlighted the persistent difficulty of meeting release timelines. Leecia Welch, chief legal director at Children’s Rights, told the AP that advocates have begun using “100 days” as a benchmark for prioritizing cases because so many children were exceeding 20 days. The AP reported that Welch said she counted more than 30 children held for over 100 days during a visit this month.
The AP’s account also described a dispute over oversight and conditions inside Dilley, including what oversight has existed and what has changed. The outlet reported that an increased detention of children has coincided with actions that “gutted” a Department of Homeland Security office responsible for oversight of conditions at Dilley and other facilities, and that Dr. Pamela McPherson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who previously inspected the centers, raised concerns about the lack of a “check-and-balance” role.
The AP included a case in which the outlet said a child’s mental health deteriorated in detention and that the girl used a plastic knife to cut her wrist during a crisis. The outlet reported that the family described an incident after staff restricted access during a lockdown, and that Andrea Armero told the AP—via a video call from Colombia after the family was deported—that her daughter said she preferred to die rather than continue living in confinement. The AP reported that DHS acknowledged a “case of self-harm” but did not provide details about what happened or how staff handled the incident, and that CoreCivic’s Ryan Gustin said the company did not answer specific questions citing privacy rules.
CoreCivic and government officials disputed what the AP described as poor care and harmful conditions at Dilley, the outlet said. ICE Director Todd M. Lyons, in a statement to the AP, said Dilley is a family residential center designed specifically to house family units in a safe, structured and appropriate environment, and that services include medical screenings and infant care packages, along with classrooms and recreational spaces. The AP reported that ICE and DHS also sharply refuted allegations made by families, and that in one medical case the agency disputed the accounts and said a child “immediately received proper medical care” at Dilley before being sent to a hospital.
On the final day of release, families described uncertainty about what comes next even after leaving the facility. In the AP’s description, parents released from Dilley sought flights back to the homes they left, and one mother said her daughter expressed fear about work, school, and being picked up again, while the mother said a special paper instructing ICE to leave them alone provided some hope. The AP’s story ended by placing those worries against the scale of child detention the outlet said has grown since last fall, and against claims by advocates that children are being held well beyond established benchmarks.