Fourteen-year-old Ariana Velasquez had been held on the immigrant detention heart in Dilley, Texas, together with her mom for some 45 days after I managed to get inside to satisfy her. The employees 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 she or he was sporting 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 a lot of the speaking.
She perked up after I requested about residence: 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 residence who was already dwelling within the U.S., and had two extra youngsters. Ariana took care of them after faculty. She was a freshman at Hicksville Excessive, and being detained on the Dilley Immigration Processing Middle meant that she was falling behind in her lessons. She instructed me how a lot she missed her favourite signal language trainer, 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 vast brown eyes. I instructed Ariana that they missed her too. Jacob had proven me a safety digital camera that their mother had put in within the kitchen so she may peek in on them from her job, typically saying “Hi there” via the speaker. I instructed Ariana that Jacob tried speaking to the digital camera, 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 in a position to see their mother in additional than a month,” she wrote. “They’re very younger and also you want each of your mother and father when you’re rising up.” Then, referring to Dilley, she added, “Since I acquired to this Middle all you’ll really feel is unhappiness and largely despair.”
Dilley, run by non-public jail agency CoreCivic, is positioned some 72 miles south of San Antonio and practically 2,000 miles away from Ariana’s residence. It’s a sprawling assortment of trailers and dormitories, virtually the identical colour because the dusty panorama, surrounded by a tall fence. It first opened throughout 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 household 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 kids from mother and father when immigrant households had been detained crossing the border. Trump officers stated Dilley was a spot the place immigrant households could be detained collectively.
Because the second Trump administration’s crackdown each slowed border crossings to report lows and ramped up a blitz of immigration arrests all throughout the nation, the inhabitants inside Dilley shifted. The administration started sending mother and father and youngsters who had been dwelling within the nation lengthy sufficient to put down roots and to construct networks of relations, associates and supporters keen to talk up in opposition to their detention.
If the administration believed that placing kids in Dilley wouldn’t stir the identical outcry as separating them from their mother and father, it was mistaken. The picture of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos from Ecuador, who was detained along with his father in Minneapolis whereas sporting 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 oldsters and youngsters at Dilley, together with their relations on the skin. I additionally spoke to individuals who labored inside the middle or visited it frequently 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 stated he doubted I may get formal approval and steered I may strive displaying up there as a customer. So I did.
Since early December, I’ve spoken, in individual and by way of telephone and video calls, to greater than two dozen detainees, half of them youngsters detained at Dilley — all of whose mother and father gave me their’ consent. I requested mother and father whether or not their kids could 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 had been filled 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 had been detained. “I’ve been 50 days in Dilley Immigration Processing Middle,” she wrote. “Seen how individuals like me, immigrants are been handled adjustments my perspective in regards to the U.S. My mother and I got here to The uslooking for a great and secure place to stay.”
Susej Fernández, 9, Shares Her Each day Struggles in Detention
A 14-year-old Colombian lady, who signed her identify Gaby M.M. and who a fellow detainee stated had been dwelling in Houston, wrote a letter about how the guards at Dilley “have unhealthy method of talking to residents.” She wrote, “The employees deal with the residents unhumanly, verbally and I don’t wish to imging how they’d 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 sporting their detainee ID badges. A observe on the aspect stated, “I’m not completely happy, please get me out of right here.”
A few of the youngsters I met spoke English in addition to they did Spanish.
After I requested the children to inform me in regards to the issues they missed most from their lives outdoors Dilley, they virtually at all times talked about their academics and associates at college. Then they’d get to issues like lacking a beloved canine, McDonald’s Pleased Meals, their favourite stuffed animal or a pair of recent UGGs that had been ready for them beneath the Christmas tree.
They instructed me they feared what would possibly occur to them in the event that they returned to their residence international locations and what would possibly occur to them in the event that they remained right here. 13-year-old Gustavo Santiago stated he didn’t wish to return to Tamaulipas, Mexico. “I’ve associates, faculty, and household right here in america,” he stated of his residence in San Antonio, Texas. “To today, I don’t know what we did improper 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 overlook about us.”
Round 3,500 detainees, greater than half of them minors, have cycled via 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 will be held in detention to twenty days, an information evaluation by ProPublica discovered that about 300 youngsters despatched to Dilley by the Trump administration had been there for greater than a month. The administration in authorized filings has stated the settlement from 1997 is outdated and ought to be terminated as a result of there are new statutes, rules and insurance policies that guarantee good circumstances for immigrant minors in detention.
Habiba Soliman, 18, instructed me she had been detained for greater than eight months together 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 had been being held in Gaza. Their father, Mohamed Soliman, pleaded not responsible to federal and state expenses. Authorities have stated they’re investigating whether or not his spouse and her kids offered assist for the assault. They deny figuring out something about it and an arrest warrant experiences that he instructed an officer he by no means talked to his spouse or household about his plans.
Regardless of Trump’s promise to go after violent criminals, the overwhelming majority of adults detained at Dilley over the past yr had no legal report in america. A few of the mother and father I spoke to had overstayed visas. Many had filed purposes for asylum, had married U.S. residents or had been granted humanitarian parole and had been detained after they voluntarily confirmed up for appointments at ICE places of work. They stated that it was unfair to arrest them, and that detaining their kids was simply plain merciless.
There have been kids in Dilley who had been so distraught they lower themselves or talked about suicide, a number of moms instructed me. Not too long ago, two instances of measles had been found within the heart. Federal officers stated they quarantined some immigrants, and attorneys stated 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, stated in a press release that each one detainees at Dilley are “being supplied with correct medical care.” DHS didn’t reply to questions on particular person detainees however stated 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 mother and father are given the choice for his or her households to be deported collectively, or they will have their kids positioned with one other caregiver, the assertion stated.
CoreCivic stated that Dilley, like its different services, 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 instructed me that their youngsters had misplaced their appetites after discovering worms and mildew on their meals, had bother sleeping on the power’s exhausting steel bunk beds in rooms shared by not less than a dozen different individuals, and had been always sick.
“The shock for my daughter was devastating,” Maria Alejandra Montoya from Colombia wrote in an electronic mail to me about her daughter Maria Antonia. “Watching her adapt is like watching her wings being clipped. Listening to different kids struggle over card video games on the tables makes me really feel like we’re not moms and youngsters, however inmates.”
Life Inside
Alexander Perez, a 15-year-old from the Dominican Republic, instructed me about going to highschool at Dilley. He stated lessons included youngsters from blended age teams, and every class allowed solely 12 college students and lasted for only one hour. Slots had been assigned on a first-come-first-served foundation. Youngsters would line up, hoping to get in. The employees main the category would distribute handouts and worksheets to those that made it inside.
Alexander Perez complained that the teachings had been normally meant for teenagers who had 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 every time 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 lessons designed to assist us disconnect from what we’re experiencing right here, why the necessity to ask ourselves these questions?” he stated throughout a video name with me. “I didn’t assume that was proper.”
Alexander Perez, 15, Shares His Recommendation for Different Dilley Detainees
He, his mom and his 14-year-old brother, Jorge, stated they’d been detained whereas touring from Los Angeles to Houston when the bus they had 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, instructed me she was within the means of interesting a decide’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 instructed me that after he gave up on attending lessons at Dilley, he performed basketball within the recreation space and watched a whole lot of Spanish cleaning soap operas on TV. Jorge, who celebrated his birthday in December at Dilley with a tiny cake created from vanilla commissary cookies, spent a lot of the day sleeping.
DHS stated in its assertion that “kids have entry to academics, school rooms, and curriculum booklets for math, studying, and spelling.”
Boredom was a theme that ran via lots of the letters from kids at Dilley. “They instructed 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 stated had settled together with her mom in Austin, Texas. She wrote that when she felt sick and went to the physician, “the one factor they inform you is to drink extra water and the worst factor is that it looks as if the water is what makes individuals sick right here.”
Ariana expressed related issues in her letter. She wrote, “Should you want medical consideration the longest you need to wait is 3 hours, however to get any medication, tablet, something it takes some time, there are numerous viruses individuals are at all times sick. Severe conditions occur and the officers can’t take them critical sufficient there are not any consecuenses, they don’t care.”
Unhealthy Meals, Inadequate Medication
The shortage of dependable medical care was maybe probably the most critical concern mother and father and youngsters spoke about of their interviews with me. The Texas-based nonprofit advocacy group RAICES, which gives authorized illustration to many households at Dilley, stated in a latest 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 continuously expertise delays, dismissals, or lack of follow-up.”
Kheilin Valero from Venezuela, who was being held together with her 18-month-old, Amalia Arrieta, stated shortly after they had been detained following an ICE appointment on Dec. 11 in El Paso, Texas, the child fell unwell. For 2 weeks, she stated, medical employees gave her ibuprofen and ultimately antibiotics, however Amalia’s respiration 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 stated. “She was malnourished, too, as a result of she was vomiting every little thing.”
Gustavo Santiago, the 13-year-old boy who’d been dwelling in Texas, stated he has been sick a number of instances since he and his mother had been detained on Oct. 5 of final yr at a Border Patrol checkpoint. His mother, Christian Hinojosa, stated that when Gustavo had a fever, the medical employees instructed her he was sufficiently old for his physique to struggle it off with out medicine, so she sat up with him all night time, 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 heart. She stated 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 in regards to the facility because it started accepting households once more final spring, I discovered pleas for assist for toddlers having bother respiration, a pregnant lady who handed out and an elementary-school-aged lady having seizures. Native authorities had been additionally known as in for 3 instances of alleged sexual assault between detainees.
DHS stated in its assertion, “Nobody is denied medical care.”
CoreCivic stated 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 stated its medical employees “meet the very best requirements of care” and stated the power works intently 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, had been detained on Dec. 1, after 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 look ahead to 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 frequently 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 had been instructed they couldn’t go away this time and had been on a aircraft to Dilley by 6 that night, with out being given an opportunity to name their household. “Because the 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 mother and father, Darianny Gonzalez and Yohendry Crespo, had been detained outdoors a hospital the place they’d taken Diana for emergency care. The household had been granted humanitarian parole after coming into america 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 report ranges. She stated 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, instructed me that the 10-day trip to Disney World that she had deliberate together with her mom and stepdad became greater than 100 days at Dilley. She’d flown into Florida from Medellin, Colombia, the place she lived together 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 authorised. Maria Antonia traveled frequently backwards and forwards 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 instructed 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, after I arrived each night time I cried and now I don’t sleep effectively,” Maria Antonia, who wears thick glasses, wrote to me. “I felt that being right here was my fault and I solely wished 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 individuals all of sudden, with out clarification. Amongst them had been Ariana and her mother.
The releases got here as such a shock that Stephanie stated 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 she or he and Ariana had been dropped off in Laredo, Texas, the place they scrambled to purchase a aircraft 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 test in at an workplace close to her residence. She had been so nervous that she acquired misplaced on the best way to the appointment. She was given a sequence 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 could be visited at her residence.
Jacob had initially refused to go to highschool as a result of he was afraid his mom and sister wouldn’t be there when he got here residence, however she’d lastly gotten him to go by promising each morning that she’s not leaving once more.
Ariana went again to highschool a couple of days later. Her English trainer instantly hugged her and sobbed, “We actually missed you.”
I known as Ariana final Wednesday to test in on her. She was serving to Jacob along with his homework, however she took a break to provide me an replace. There are a whole lot of different immigrants at her faculty, however she had solely instructed her shut associates, who she sits with at lunch, in regards to the purpose for her extended absence. When different individuals requested, she simply stated, “I needed to go to Texas for one thing.”
She says she’s attempting 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 in regards to the individuals she met again at Dilley. Days after I requested DHS about a number of households talked about on this story, 5 of them had 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, had been returned to Colombia. Others are nonetheless detained. Ariana stated, “I want they acquired out as a result of they shouldn’t be there any longer.”
Earlier than we hung up, Ariana stated one thing that steered her youthful optimism hadn’t been totally damaged. She’d discovered that she’d gotten higher at taking part in volleyball at Dilley and now plans to check out for her faculty staff.
For this story, ProPublica analyzed federal knowledge on ICE detentions launched via the Deportation Knowledge Undertaking. The information comprises information for immigrant arrests and detentions going via October of 2025.
