Members of Congress who toured the Dilley Immigration Processing Center July 28 were left stunned and outraged by the physical and psychological torture they say migrant families endure there every day.
The San Antonio-area facility houses families with a special emphasis on women and children, most of whom have been detained for many months without access to adequate food, water, medical care and legal representation, the lawmakers said during a press briefing hosted by FWD.us and Families Belong Together.
The delegation included U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and four members of the Congressional Democratic Women’s Caucus. They returned with stories of despondent and suicidal children, despairing parents, families separated violently, and individuals suffering from untreated medical conditions.
U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., said the living conditions are “horrific,” with worms in the food, water in short supply and lights left on 24 hours a day to deny rest to the detainees. “Used underwear is being intentionally given to women, the results being UTIs (urinary tract infections) that obviously don’t get treated.”
Yassamin Ansari
Ansari said she is outraged that Americans’ tax dollars are being used to abuse children at Dilley, which is run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Even though I know the Trump regime is the most corrupt and the most authoritarian in American history, it is still hard to fathom that there is so much evil and so much callousness in the people at the very top, like Stephen Miller and the Department of Homeland Security, that they are willing to put children through such horrific trauma and abuse,” she said.
And just as frustrating, she added, is that the detainees at Dilley do not have criminal records and corporations like Core Civic and The GEO Group are profiting from the cruelty of Trump’s mass deportation scheme. “So many of us in Congress and so many Americans recognize and believe that this is not right and that this has to end.”
To date, 110 members of Congress have demanded the facility’s closure, which was accomplished before during the Biden administration, Castro said. “The trauma — physical and mental — on those children will be harsh and long lasting. Every single day a child spends in Dilley, they are traumatized.”
Castro said he has toured the facility seven times and each time the human toll has been worse. The more than 500 child detainees currently there are often “stone faced,” sobbing, holding on to despondent parents and begging for release.
“Every single day a child spends in Dilley, they are traumatized.”
“Remember, this is a system where you have young kids who will sometimes have to represent themselves in front of judges in court, something that even a convicted killer doesn’t have to do because they get legal representation,” he explained.
The “horror stories” Castro heard included a woman not allowed to attend a medical appointment following a heart procedure, a father arrested after being told to pick up his daughter from detention and numerous cases of lost apartments, houses and child custody.
Detainees also are routinely denied information about the status of their asylum or other immigration cases, he said. “This is a system that has been duplicitous, that made it a routine to lie not only to the detainees, but also to the public and even to members of Congress.”
Lizzie Fletcher
U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Texas, said she was grateful for the opportunity to tell Americans what is happening in Texas and across the country in the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort.
“This immigration enforcement regime, ICE and the Trump administration, are creating trauma not only for individuals, but they are terrorizing our communities and they are creating trauma across our communities,” she said.
“I spent a lot of time today talking with some of the adults who are there because there are families, as well as a group of women, who are detained at Dilley,” Fletcher said. “I spoke with women who have been there for eight months who were picked up off the street while they were coming home from exercising. They had no idea why they were being picked up, they had no idea where they were going and they have very little, if any, contact with anyone outside.”
The nation will face a huge mental health crisis if children are not removed from ICE detention, said Anita Patel, a pediatric critical care attending physician and associate professor of pediatrics.
Anita Patel
“We know unequivocally that children who are detained are experiencing severe, predictable and lasting harm,” Patel said after visiting Dilley. “These are not just diagnoses, these are cruel harms inflicted upon children.”
Dismantling Dilley and the wider immigration system will require every American to stand up against them, said U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.,
“The only way to beat a dictator is with defiance, the only way to beat fascism is to refuse to accept this segregated, divided, dark dystopian view they have for our country. We have to resist, reject, condemn at every turn.”
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