Dilley, Texas — Today news broke of the Trump administration beginning to detain families at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas (nicknamed Dilley). The facility will detain up to 2,400 families. The alarming return of family detention, a policy that was widely condemned and has been dormant for four years, is yet another layer of the Trump administration’s unprecedented and cruel expansion of immigration detention, that if fully realized will triple the current detention system.
Families have largely not been subjected to family detention since the Biden administration stopped detaining families at the Berks Detention Center in Pennsylvania, the Karnes Residential Center in Texas, and the South Texas Family Residential Center - proving that the U.S. can welcome families to the United States without jailing them. Family detention centers have a well-documented history of negligence and abuse, including inadequate medical and mental health care, unhealthy weight loss among children, and inappropriate disciplinary tactics, including threats to separate families if children misbehave. Numerous studies have shown the psychologically damaging effects of family detention: medical and child welfare professionals have noted again and again that it is especially harmful to children, leading to emotional and mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and weight loss, among other physical and behavioral health problems.
About the South Texas Family Residential Center (Dilley):
Dilley was one of four family detention centers opened by President Obama when his administration dramatically expanded family detention in 2014. The Trump administration continued to use Dilley to further expand the use of family detention and family separation. In a step welcomed by advocates, the Biden administration stopped detaining families in December 2021. However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not terminate its long-standing contract with the facility. Instead, the South Texas Family Residential Center began detaining single adults. When at capacity, the South Texas Family Residential Center was the largest detention center in the United States.
While in operation for family detention, there were reports of foul water and negligent medical treatment, with hospitals confirming that children are consistently released with health issues they dubbed “Dilley-ish.” In 2018, a 19-month old girl, Mariee, tragically died after leaving the facility and in 2019, a guard was accused of physically assaulting a 5-year-old.
In response to this news, Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network, said:
“It is enraging to see the Trump administration reinstate family detention, a policy of jailing immigrant parents with their children – including babies. Detention is harmful and traumatic for everyone, but especially children. Families should be able to navigate their immigration cases in community with support services provided and facilitated by local community based groups – never Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an enforcement agency that is plagued by egregiously poor conditions and a culture of violence. Taking away a child’s freedom and deliberately putting them in these conditions is unconscionable, as is denying a parent their most fundamental role of providing their child with a loving and nurturing environment. Family detention, like all immigration detention, is inhumane, unjust, and unnecessary. Everyone, certainly children and their parents, deserves to freely and safely move for opportunity and stability.”
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Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.