\n<\/p>\n
LAREDO, Texas — <\/span>A month after ICE agents sent the young Ecuadorian mother and her 7-year-old daughter to a sprawling detention center<\/a> 1,300 miles from their Minnesota home, they were finally free.<\/p>\n But when the bus pulled up to a migrant shelter in the border city of Laredo, dropping off a half-dozen families lugging bags stuffed with belongings, the stress of recent weeks tracked mother and daughter like the long shadows on that mid-February afternoon.<\/p>\n Night after night inside south Texas\u2019 Dilley Immigration Processing Center<\/a> with hundreds of other families, the grade-schooler wept and pleaded to know why they were being held.<\/p>\n \u201cShe would tell me, ‘Mom, what crime did I commit to be a prisoner?’ I didn\u2019t know what to tell her,\u201d said the 29-year-old, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear being identified could negatively affect their immigration case. Her husband was deported to Ecuador soon after they were taken into custody.<\/p>\n Many Americans were alarmed last month when photos<\/a> circulated showing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis detaining a 5-year-old boy wearing a bunny hat and carrying a Spiderman backpack. The concern followed Liam Conejo Ramos and his father when they were sent to Dilley, surrounded by chain-link fences on a dusty plain about 75 miles south of San Antonio.<\/p>\n But Liam was hardly an outlier. ICE has been holding hundreds of children at Dilley \u2014 many for months<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are all Liam,\u201d Christian Hinojosa, an immigrant from Mexico, said by phone from Dilley, where she and her 13-year-old son were held for more than four months. They were released this month and allowed to return home to San Antonio where she works as a health aide.<\/p>\n She noted that Liam and his father were released from Dilley after 10 days<\/a>, when members of Congress and a judge intervened.<\/a><\/p>\n “My son says, \u2018That\u2019s unfair, Mama. What\u2019s the difference between him and us?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n When the Obama administration opened Dilley in 2014, nearly all families detained there had recently crossed the border from Mexico. Detentions at the facility were scaled back by the Biden administration in 2021, before it was closed three years later.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n EDITOR\u2019S NOTE \u2014 This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Since being reopened<\/a> by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration last spring, life inside Dilley \u2014 a compound of trailers and other prefabricated buildings \u2014 has been shaped by three decisive changes.<\/p>\n The number of detained families has risen sharply since last fall. The government is holding many children well beyond the 20-day limit set by longstanding court order. And many detainees have lived in the U.S. for several years, with roots in neighborhoods, workplaces and schools, according to lawyers and other observers.<\/p>\n \u201cJust imagine that you\u2019re a child and you\u2019re taken out of your surroundings,\u201d said Philip Schrag, a Georgetown University law professor and author of \u201cBaby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Suddenly you’re in “a completely strange environment with the doors locked and guards in uniform roaming around,\u201d said Schrag, who counseled Dilley detainees as a volunteer lawyer during the Obama administration.<\/p>\n ICE booked more than 3,800 children into detention during the first nine months of the new Trump administration, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the University of California, Berkeley\u2019s Deportation Data Project. On an average day more than 220 children were held, with most of those detained longer than 24 hours sent to Dilley. More than half of Dilley detainees during that period were children.<\/p>\n Nearly two-thirds of children detained by ICE were eventually deported and almost 1 in 10 left the country when their parents accepted voluntary departure, according to an AP analysis of the latest comprehensive data. About a quarter were released in the U.S., requiring their parents to check in regularly with ICE as their legal cases proceed.<\/p>\n The number of detainees at Dilley has risen sharply since the period covered by the data, nearly tripling between last fall and late January to more than 1,300, according to Relevant Research, which analyzes immigration enforcement data.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve started to use 100 days as a benchmark because so many children are exceeding 20 days,\u201d said Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at Children\u2019s Rights, who visits Dilley regularly to ensure compliance. In a visit this month, Welch said she counted more than 30 children who had been held for over 100 days.<\/p>\n The increased detention of children comes as the Trump administration has gutted a Department of Homeland Security office responsible for oversight of conditions inside Dilley and other facilities.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a particular concern that family detention is being increased,\u201d said Dr. Pamela McPherson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist contracted by DHS from 2014 until last year to inspect and investigate conditions at Dilley and other ICE facilities holding children. <\/p>\n \u201cJust who\u2019s providing that check-and-balance now?\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents the congressional district where Dilley is located, said multiple visits have convinced him criticism of the center is unfair.<\/p>\n He said he\u2019d been impressed by Dilley’s facilities and the professionalism and dedication of staff. \u201cThey\u2019re not doing policy. They\u2019re just fulfilling a duty,\u201d said Gonzales, a Republican.<\/p>\n DHS did not respond to detailed questions about Dilley submitted by the AP. But both DHS and ICE sharply refuted allegations of poor care and conditions there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Dilley facility is a family residential center designed specifically to house family units in a safe, structured and appropriate environment,\u201d ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement this week. Services include medical screenings, infant care packages as well as classrooms and recreational spaces.<\/p>\n But concerns about Dilley are personal for Kheilin Valero Marcano, a Venezuelan immigrant detained with her husband and 1-year-old daughter, Amalia, in December and held for nearly two months.<\/p>\n When the child got a high fever, Valero Marcano said Dilley staff told her it was just a virus. Two weeks later, Amalia started vomiting, then losing weight. Valero Marcano said she took her to the Dilley doctor\u2019s office at least eight times but was offered Tylenol and ibuprofen.<\/p>\n The baby was eventually sent to two hospitals, where doctors diagnosed COVID, bronchitis, pneumonia and stomach virus, she said.<\/p>\n ICE disputed Valero Marcano’s account, saying in a statement the baby \u201cimmediately received proper medical care\u201d at Dilley before being sent to the hospital. Back in Dilley, \u201cshe was in the medical unit and received proper treatment and prescribed medicines,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The family\u2019s return to Dilley coincided with a measles outbreak there. They were released earlier this month after their lawyers petitioned the court.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so worried for all the families who are still inside,\u201d Valero Marcano said. <\/p>\n After more than two months in a cramped room at Dilley with three other families, the 13-year-old girl\u2019s depression turned increasingly dark.<\/p>\n The eighth grader stopped eating after finding a worm in her food, family members said. Staff sometimes withheld medications she\u2019d long been prescribed to keep her anxiety in check and help her sleep.<\/p>\n When a total lockdown was imposed, a guard blocked the teen from leaving the crowded room to join her mother and sister in the bathroom. She spiraled into crisis, and used a plastic knife from the cafeteria to cut her wrist.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said she didn\u2019t want to live anymore because she preferred to die rather than having to keep living in confinement,\u201d her mother, Andrea Armero, told the AP in a video call from Colombia, where the family was deported this month. The AP generally avoids identifying people who attempt or die by suicide.<\/p>\n The girl\u2019s struggles began before she arrived at Dilley. Soon after starting middle school in Colombia, she learned a family member had sexually abused her younger sister. Armero said she saw no option but to leave and in early 2024 she and her daughters traveled to the U.S. border with Mexico, applying for asylum.<\/p>\n Living with family in Florida, the 13-year-old was doing well in school but sometimes experienced panic attacks about being sent back to Colombia. Under a psychiatrist\u2019s care, she was prescribed anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications and regularly saw a therapist. Then, in December, ICE agents detained Armero and her daughters during a routine check-in.<\/p>\n At Dilley, the 13-year-old calmed herself by drawing, producing haunting pictures of a girl locked inside gates. But when she and other detainees took part in a protest after 5-year-old Liam and his father got to Dilley, guards took away drawing materials and ordered everyone to stay inside. <\/p>\n The teen’s mental health collapsed. She tried to harm herself with the plastic knife, Armero said, and repeatedly hit her head. The family was put into isolation without seeing a doctor, then deported to Colombia on Feb. 11 after a judge ordered them removed, she said.<\/p>\n Dilley discharge documents described \u201cactive problems,\u201d including a \u201csuicide attempt by cutting of wrist\u201d and \u201cself-harm,\u201d in addition to a \u201chistory of post-traumatic stress disorder” and \u201chistory of anxiety.\u201d AP also spoke with detainees and attorneys who independently described the girl\u2019s suicide attempt.<\/p>\n Responding to questions from AP, a DHS official acknowledged there had been \u201ca case of self-harm\u201d inside the facility, but did not specify what had happened, or how staff handled the incident. When AP asked for details, DHS did not respond to follow-up questions.<\/p>\n \u201cNo child at Dilley … has been denied medical treatment or experienced a delayed medical assessment,\u201d said Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for CoreCivic, the for-profit prison company that operates the facility under contract with ICE. Gustin declined to answer specific question about the 13-year-old girl, citing privacy rules.<\/p>\n On a phone call from inside Dilley, 13-year-old Gustavo Santino-Josa introduced himself to a reporter by name and the 9-digit identification number ICE assigned him when he was taken into custody with his mother.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil today I don\u2019t know what we did wrong to get detained,\u201d Gustavo said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen my mom cry almost daily and I ask God that we can go out and go home soon.\u201d<\/p>\n He worried they might never be released.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom says that as long as there is hope it is worth fighting for,\u201d Gustavo said before handing the phone to his mother, Christian Hinojosa, the health care aide originally from Mexico. <\/p>\n \u201cAll his friends have left already,\u201d his mother said. \u201cSome were deported. Some got released recently. And it hurts. It hurts to see people leaving and you\u2019re staying here.\u201d<\/p>\n Dilley was built to hold 2,400 people, housed in clusters ICE calls \u201cneighborhoods.\u201d Bunk beds are arranged side-by-side for up to four families, frequently putting parents with young children in close quarters.<\/p>\n Once in full operation, Dilley is expected to generate about $180 million in annual revenue for CoreCivic, according to the company’s recent filing with securities regulators.<\/p>\n In a video on its website, CoreCivic says Dilley\u2019s \u201copen campus layout allows residents to move freely and unescorted throughout the day.\u201d<\/p>\n It does not mention that parents and their children are locked inside.<\/p>\n In response to questions from the AP, CoreCivic’s Gustin said the staff at Dilley includes a pediatrician, pediatric nurse practitioner, other trained medical professionals, as well as mental health services to \u201cmeet the needs of children and families in our care.\u201d<\/p>\n In talks with parents of children held at Dilley, however, the same problems come up repeatedly, said Welch, the children\u2019s rights lawyer.<\/p>\n