Fourteen-year-old Ariana Velasquez had been held on the immigrant detention middle in Dilley, Texas, along with her mom for some 45 days once I managed to get inside to satisfy her. The workers introduced everybody within the visiting room a boxed lunch from the cafeteria: a cup of yellowish stew and a hamburger patty in a plain bun. Ariana’s lengthy black curls hung loosely round her face and he or she was carrying a government-issued grey sweatsuit. At first, she sat trying blankly down on the desk. She poked at her meals with a plastic fork and let her mom do many of the speaking.
She perked up once I requested about dwelling: Hicksville, New York. She and her mom had moved there from Honduras when she was 7. Her mom, Stephanie Valladares, had utilized for asylum, married a neighbor from again dwelling who was already dwelling within the U.S., and had two extra youngsters. Ariana took care of them after college. She was a freshman at Hicksville Excessive, and being detained on the Dilley Immigration Processing Middle meant that she was falling behind in her courses. She advised me how a lot she missed her favourite signal language instructor, however most of all she missed her siblings.
I had beforehand met them in Hicksville: Gianna, a toddler who everybody calls Gigi, and Jacob, a kindergartener with broad brown eyes. I advised Ariana that they missed her too. Jacob had proven me a safety digicam that their mother had put in within the kitchen so she may peek in on them from her job, typically saying “Hi there” by way of the speaker. I advised Ariana that Jacob tried speaking to the digicam, hoping his mother would reply.
Stephanie burst into tears. So did Ariana. After my go to, Ariana wrote me a letter.
“My youthful siblings haven’t been capable of see their mother in additional than a month,” she wrote. “They’re very younger and also you want each of your dad and mom if you find yourself rising up.” Then, referring to Dilley, she added, “Since I acquired to this Middle all you’ll really feel is disappointment and principally despair.”
Dilley, run by non-public jail agency CoreCivic, is situated some 72 miles south of San Antonio and almost 2,000 miles away from Ariana’s dwelling. It’s a sprawling assortment of trailers and dormitories, nearly the identical colour because the dusty panorama, surrounded by a tall fence. It first opened in the course of the Obama administration to carry an inflow of households crossing the border. Former President Joe Biden stopped holding households there in 2021, arguing America shouldn’t be within the enterprise of detaining kids.
However rapidly after returning to workplace, President Donald Trump resumed family detentions as a part of his mass deportation marketing campaign. Federal courts and overwhelming public outrage had put an finish to Trump’s first-term coverage of separating children from parents when immigrant families were detained crossing the border. Trump officers mentioned Dilley was a spot the place immigrant households can be detained collectively.
Because the second Trump administration’s crackdown each slowed border crossings to file lows and ramped up a blitz of immigration arrests all throughout the nation, the inhabitants inside Dilley shifted. The administration started sending dad and mom and kids who had been dwelling within the nation lengthy sufficient to put down roots and to construct networks of family members, associates and supporters keen to talk up towards their detention.
If the administration believed that placing kids in Dilley wouldn’t stir the identical outcry as separating them from their dad and mom, it was mistaken. The photograph of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos from Ecuador, who was detained together with his father in Minneapolis whereas carrying a Spider-Man backpack and a blue bunny hat, went viral on social media and triggered widespread condemnation and a protest by the detainees.
Weeks earlier than that, I had begun talking to folks and kids at Dilley, together with their family members on the surface. I additionally spoke to individuals who labored inside the middle or visited it commonly to provide spiritual or authorized companies. I had requested Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for permission to go to however acquired a spread of responses. One spokesperson denied my request, one other mentioned he doubted I may get formal approval and instructed I may strive displaying up there as a customer. So I did.
Since early December, I’ve spoken, in particular person and through telephone and video calls, to greater than two dozen detainees, half of them youngsters detained at Dilley — all of whose dad and mom gave me their’ consent. I requested dad and mom whether or not their children would be open to writing to me about their experiences. Greater than three dozen youngsters responded; some simply drew photos, others wrote in excellent cursive. Some letters have been stuffed with age-appropriate misspellings.
Amongst them was a letter from a 9-year-old Venezuelan lady, named Susej Fernández, who had been dwelling in Houston when she and her mom have been detained. “I’ve been 50 days in Dilley Immigration Processing Middle,” she wrote. “Seen how folks like me, immigrants are been handled adjustments my perspective concerning the U.S. My mother and I got here to The uslooking for an excellent and secure place to stay.”
Susej Fernández, 9, Shares Her Every day Struggles in Detention
A 14-year-old Colombian lady, who signed her identify Gaby M.M. and who a fellow detainee mentioned had been dwelling in Houston, wrote a letter about how the guards at Dilley “have dangerous method of chatting with residents.” She wrote, “The employees deal with the residents unhumanly, verbally and I don’t need to imging how they might act in the event that they the place unsupervised.”
9-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra, from Colombia, drew a portrait of herself and her mom carrying their detainee ID badges. A be aware on the facet mentioned, “I’m not comfortable, please get me out of right here.”
Among the youngsters I met spoke English in addition to they did Spanish.
After I requested the youngsters to inform me concerning the issues they missed most from their lives outdoors Dilley, they nearly at all times talked about their academics and associates at college. Then they’d get to issues like lacking a beloved canine, McDonald’s Joyful Meals, their favourite stuffed animal or a pair of recent UGGs that had been ready for them below the Christmas tree.
They advised me they feared what would possibly occur to them in the event that they returned to their dwelling nations and what would possibly occur to them in the event that they remained right here. 13-year-old Gustavo Santiago mentioned he didn’t need to return to Tamaulipas, Mexico. “I’ve associates, college, and household right here in the USA,” he mentioned of his dwelling in San Antonio, Texas. “To at the present time, I don’t know what we did flawed to be detained.” He ended with a plea, “I really feel like I’ll by no means get out of right here. I simply ask that you simply don’t neglect about us.”
Round 3,500 detainees, greater than half of them minors, have cycled by way of the middle because it reopened, greater than the inhabitants of the city of Dilley itself. Though a long-standing authorized settlement usually limits the time kids might be held in detention to twenty days, a knowledge evaluation by ProPublica discovered that about 300 youngsters despatched to Dilley by the Trump administration have been there for greater than a month. The administration in authorized filings has mentioned the settlement from 1997 is outdated and ought to be terminated as a result of there are new statutes, laws and insurance policies that guarantee good situations for immigrant minors in detention.
Habiba Soliman, 18, advised me she had been detained for greater than eight months along with her mother and 4 siblings, ranging in age from 16 to 5-year-old twins, after her father was charged for an alleged antisemitic assault in June at rally in Boulder, Colorado, supporting the Jewish hostages who have been being held in Gaza. Their father, Mohamed Soliman, pleaded not responsible to federal and state prices. Authorities have said they are investigating whether or not his spouse and her kids offered assist for the assault. They deny realizing something about it and an arrest warrant experiences that he advised an officer he never talked to his wife or family about his plans.
Regardless of Trump’s promise to go after violent criminals, the overwhelming majority of adults detained at Dilley over the past 12 months had no prison file in the USA. Among the dad and mom I spoke to had overstayed visas. Many had filed functions for asylum, had married U.S. residents or had been granted humanitarian parole and have been detained once they voluntarily confirmed up for appointments at ICE workplaces. They mentioned that it was unfair to arrest them, and that detaining their kids was simply plain merciless.
There have been kids in Dilley who have been so distraught they lower themselves or talked about suicide, a number of moms advised me. Lately, two cases of measles were discovered within the middle. Federal officers mentioned they quarantined some immigrants, and attorneys mentioned ICE cancelled in-person authorized visits till Feb. 14 as a security precaution.
Learn Extra Letters From Youngsters Detained at Dilley
The Division of Homeland Safety, which oversees ICE, mentioned in an announcement that each one detainees at Dilley are “being supplied with correct medical care.” DHS didn’t reply to questions on particular person detainees however mentioned that each one “are supplied with 3 meals a day, clear water, clothes, bedding, showers, cleaning soap, and toiletries” and that “licensed dieticians consider meals.” Detained dad and mom are given the choice for his or her households to be deported collectively, or they’ll have their kids positioned with one other caregiver, the assertion mentioned.
CoreCivic mentioned that Dilley, like its different amenities, is topic to a number of layers of oversight to make sure full compliance with insurance policies and procedures, together with any relevant detention requirements.
Mothers advised me that their youngsters had misplaced their appetites after discovering worms and mildew on their meals, had hassle sleeping on the ability’s arduous metallic bunk beds in rooms shared by not less than a dozen different folks, and have been consistently sick.
“The shock for my daughter was devastating,” Maria Alejandra Montoya from Colombia wrote in an e mail to me about her daughter Maria Antonia. “Watching her adapt is like watching her wings being clipped. Listening to different kids combat over card video games on the tables makes me really feel like we aren’t moms and kids, however inmates.”
Life Inside
Alexander Perez, a 15-year-old from the Dominican Republic, advised me about going to high school at Dilley. He mentioned courses included youngsters from blended age teams, and every class allowed solely 12 college students and lasted for only one hour. Slots have been assigned on a first-come-first-served foundation. Youngsters would line up, hoping to get in. The workers main the category would distribute handouts and worksheets to those that made it inside.
Alexander Perez complained that the teachings have been normally meant for youths who have been youthful than him, so he discovered them boring. However as a result of there wasn’t a lot else to do, he used to go at any time when he may, till an teacher turned a social research lesson into what felt like an interrogation about immigration coverage.
“If now we have leisure actions and courses designed to assist us disconnect from what we’re experiencing right here, why the necessity to ask ourselves these questions?” he mentioned throughout a video name with me. “I didn’t suppose that was proper.”
Alexander Perez, 15, Shares His Recommendation for Different Dilley Detainees
He, his mom and his 14-year-old brother, Jorge, mentioned they’d been detained whereas touring from Los Angeles to Houston when the bus they have been on was stopped by immigration brokers who checked everybody’s standing. They’d been in Dilley for 4 months by the point we spoke. His mom, Teresa, advised me she was within the strategy of interesting a choose’s denial of her asylum petition, which could clarify why it was a sensitive topic for Alexander when it got here up at school. He advised me that after he gave up on attending courses at Dilley, he performed basketball within the recreation space and watched a variety of Spanish cleaning soap operas on TV. Jorge, who celebrated his birthday in December at Dilley with a tiny cake constructed from vanilla commissary cookies, spent many of the day sleeping.
DHS mentioned in its assertion that “kids have entry to academics, lecture rooms, and curriculum booklets for math, studying, and spelling.”
Boredom was a theme that ran by way of lots of the letters from kids at Dilley. “They advised me I may solely be right here 21 days however I’ve already spent greater than 60 days waking up consuming the identical repeated meals,” wrote a 12-year-old Venezuelan lady who signed her letter Ender, and who a fellow detainee mentioned had settled along with her mom in Austin, Texas. She wrote that when she felt sick and went to the physician, “the one factor they let you know is to drink extra water and the worst factor is that it looks as if the water is what makes folks sick right here.”
Ariana expressed comparable issues in her letter. She wrote, “In case you want medical consideration the longest it’s a must to wait is 3 hours, however to get any drugs, capsule, something it takes some time, there are numerous viruses persons are at all times sick. Severe conditions occur and the officers can’t take them severe sufficient there are not any consecuenses, they don’t care.”
Unhealthy Meals, Inadequate Drugs
The dearth of dependable medical care was maybe essentially the most severe concern dad and mom and kids spoke about of their interviews with me. The Texas-based nonprofit advocacy group RAICES, which gives authorized illustration to many households at Dilley, mentioned in a current court docket declaration that its shoppers had raised issues about inadequate medical care on not less than 700 events since August 2025. The group reported, “Youngsters with medical complaints often expertise delays, dismissals, or lack of follow-up.”
Kheilin Valero from Venezuela, who was being held along with her 18-month-old, Amalia Arrieta, mentioned shortly after they have been detained following an ICE appointment on Dec. 11 in El Paso, Texas, the child fell ailing. For 2 weeks, she mentioned, medical workers gave her ibuprofen and finally antibiotics, however Amalia’s respiratory worsened to the purpose that she was hospitalized in San Antonio for 10 days. She was recognized with COVID-19 and RSV. “As a result of she went so many days with out remedy, and since it’s so chilly right here, she developed pneumonia and bronchitis,” Kheilin mentioned. “She was malnourished, too, as a result of she was vomiting all the pieces.”
Gustavo Santiago, the 13-year-old boy who’d been dwelling in Texas, mentioned he has been sick a number of instances since he and his mother have been detained on Oct. 5 of final 12 months at a Border Patrol checkpoint. His mother, Christian Hinojosa, mentioned that when Gustavo had a fever, the medical workers advised her he was sufficiently old for his physique to combat it off with out treatment, so she sat up with him all evening, draping him in chilly compresses. She needed to take him to the infirmary for a pores and skin rash that she believed was attributable to poor water high quality on the middle. She mentioned he has additionally skilled abdomen ache and nausea, which she blamed on unsanitary meals preparation.
Amongst logs we obtained of calls made to 911 and regulation enforcement concerning the facility because it started accepting households once more final spring, I discovered pleas for assist for toddlers having hassle respiratory, a pregnant lady who handed out and an elementary-school-aged lady having seizures. Native authorities have been additionally known as in for 3 circumstances of alleged sexual assault between detainees.
DHS mentioned in its assertion, “Nobody is denied medical care.”
CoreCivic mentioned that well being and security is a high precedence for the corporate and that detainees at Dilley are supplied with a continuum of well being care companies, together with preventative care and psychological well being companies. The corporate mentioned its medical workers “meet the very best requirements of care” and mentioned the ability works carefully with native hospitals for any specialised medical wants.
The Youngsters of Dilley
Reporter Mica Rosenberg talked with dozens of detainees at Dilley, who shared their experiences in letters, movies, telephone calls and voice memos.
Torn From Their Lives
Ariana and her mom, Stephanie, have been detained on Dec. 1, once they went for certainly one of their common check-ins at an ICE workplace in New York Metropolis’s Federal Plaza, that are required as they await a choice on their asylum case. Stephanie had come to the U.S. with expertise working as an accountant and, after securing her work allow, she had lastly discovered a job at a neighborhood import enterprise the place she may put that have to make use of. That they had been commonly checking in with ICE for years with out incident. However after mother and daughter confirmed up for his or her 8 a.m. ICE appointment, they have been advised they couldn’t depart this time and have been on a airplane to Dilley by 6 that night, with out being given an opportunity to name their household. “For the reason that day my mother and I get detained in Manhattan NY, my life was instanly paused,” Ariana wrote in her letter from detention after our assembly. “All youngsters are being injury mentally, they witness how the’ve been handled.”
A 7-year-old Honduran lady named Diana Crespo was dwelling in Portland, Oregon, when she and her dad and mom, Darianny Gonzalez and Yohendry Crespo, have been detained outdoors a hospital the place they’d taken Diana for emergency care. The household had been granted humanitarian parole after coming into the USA in 2024 after which utilized for asylum when Trump revoked the parole program, saying that Biden had used it to permit immigrants to pour into the nation at file ranges. She mentioned their lively asylum case didn’t cease the immigration brokers who intercepted them outdoors the emergency room from detaining them.
Maria Antonia Guerra, the 9-year-old from Colombia, advised me that the 10-day trip to Disney World that she had deliberate along with her mom and stepdad changed into greater than 100 days at Dilley. She’d flown into Florida from Medellin, Colombia, the place she lived along with her grandmother, with a Cruella de Vil costume in her suitcase. Her mom, Maria Alejandra Montoya, was dwelling in New York and had overstayed her visa, however had since married a U.S. citizen and was simply ready for her inexperienced card to be permitted. Maria Antonia traveled commonly forwards and backwards to the U.S. on a vacationer visa, and Maria Alejandra had flown down to satisfy her on the airport. Immigration brokers intercepted them and flew them to Texas. They each advised me that it felt like a kidnapping.
“I’m in a jail and I’m unhappy and I’ve fainted 2 instances right here inside, once I arrived each evening I cried and now I don’t sleep nicely,” Maria Antonia, who wears thick glasses, wrote to me. “I felt that being right here was my fault and I solely needed to be on trip like a standard household.”
Launched however Nonetheless Afraid
In January, shortly after my go to to Dilley, ICE launched some 200 folks unexpectedly, with out clarification. Amongst them have been Ariana and her mother.
The releases got here as such a shock that Stephanie mentioned one other lady started screaming and refused to let go of her bunk, fearing she was about to be deported again to Ecuador. Stephanie was fitted with an ankle monitor, and he or she and Ariana have been dropped off in Laredo, Texas, the place they scrambled to purchase a airplane ticket to LaGuardia in New York.
On Jan. 22, two days after her launch, I met Stephanie once more, this time holding Gigi as she confirmed up for her first ICE verify in at an workplace close to her dwelling. She had been so nervous that she acquired misplaced on the best way to the appointment. She was given a collection of directions and proven movies that defined the aim and cadence of her common check-ins. She’d have one each month on the workplace, and each two months she can be visited at her dwelling.
Jacob had initially refused to go to high school as a result of he was afraid his mom and sister wouldn’t be there when he got here dwelling, however she’d lastly gotten him to go by promising each morning that she’s not leaving once more.
Ariana went again to high school just a few days later. Her English instructor instantly hugged her and sobbed, “We actually missed you.”
I known as Ariana final Wednesday to verify in on her. She was serving to Jacob together with his homework, however she took a break to provide me an replace. There are a variety of different immigrants at her college, however she had solely advised her shut associates, who she sits with at lunch, concerning the cause for her extended absence. When different folks requested, she simply mentioned, “I needed to go to Texas for one thing.”
She says she’s making an attempt to place the ordeal behind her, however the toll is actual.
Her mom misplaced her job as a result of her boss is uncomfortable using somebody with an ankle monitor. And Ariana worries about her. She additionally worries concerning the folks she met again at Dilley. Days after I requested DHS about a number of households talked about on this story, 5 of them have been launched: Gustavo and his mother, Christian; Teresa and her sons, Alexander and Jorge; Kheilin and her child, Amalia; Darianny and her daughter, Diana. Maria Antonia and her mother, Maria Alejandra, have been returned to Colombia. Others are nonetheless detained. Ariana mentioned, “I want they acquired out as a result of they shouldn’t be there any longer.”
Earlier than we hung up, Ariana mentioned one thing that instructed her youthful optimism hadn’t been totally damaged. She’d discovered that she’d gotten higher at enjoying volleyball at Dilley and now plans to check out for her college staff.
For this story, ProPublica analyzed federal knowledge on ICE detentions launched by way of the Deportation Knowledge Challenge. The info comprises information for immigrant arrests and detentions going by way of October of 2025.
