Mother Jones illustration; Getty
Last week, Mother Jones published firsthand accounts of children and parents detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the nation’s only family detention center. The stories, which came from sworn oral declarations given to legal aid groups between July 2025 and February of this year, painted a bleak picture of life at the facility: wormy food, dangerously lacking medical and mental health care, water that makes children sick, nearly impossible sleeping conditions, and intimidating treatment by guards.
Now, dozens more sworn declarations included in a recent 361-page court filing reveal new details about life in the facility from January, February, and March of this year.
Detainees repeatedly said that guards threatened or intimidated them for participating in protests or filing grievances, in some cases destroying children’s letters and confiscating their art supplies.
Many of the detainees, whose declarations were translated into English by sworn interpreters, discussed the same issues that we highlighted in our first story. But they also talked about another trend: As media and political scrutiny of Dilley has increased—particularly since the arrival of 5-year-old Liam Ramos in January—so have threats of retribution against those who speak out. Detainees repeatedly said that guards threatened or intimidated them for participating in protests or filing grievances, in some cases destroying children’s letters and confiscating their art supplies. They recounted being hidden away from congressional delegations visiting the facility, or, conversely, receiving special treatment on the days that politicians and lawyers visited.
The Department of Homeland Security and CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates Dilley, have consistently said that the facility is a safe, family-friendly place where detainees have access to high-quality medical care, meals, clean water, and educational opportunities. DHS didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story, but in the past has said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not destroy letters or confiscate art supplies. In an email, CoreCivic said that the facility has been the target of “baseless allegations” that “undermine the public-service centric work” of their staff.
We went through the detainees’ recent declarations and pulled out some particularly telling parts.
On Christmas they treated us so cruelly. They brought an ICE official in a Santa Claus outfit here, but he brought no toys or sweets, and the kids all did not understand why Santa did not bring them anything. Young children went up to hug Santa, but he would push them away. It was so cruel. They clearly did it as a photo opportunity to use us to pretend they were treating us humanely. It left the kids all upset.
—41-year-old mother of a 17-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, on their 74th day at Dilley (January 14)
The holidays at Dilley were awful. On Christmas, they told us they were going to have a special Christmas event for the children. They said they would put a good movie on, and they even had flyers at the gym about it. They had all the kids come into the gym and sit in the chairs. Then they put on a video clip of the Grinch movie. After a few minutes, someone came in the gym dressed like Santa. The children were excited and started to gather around him. Staff yelled at them all to sit down, and then the Santa just gave the children who were sitting a bag of chips. Then the staff took a picture of the kids with Santa, turned the video on for another few minutes, and told the kids the activity was over. It was humiliating and frustrating to be treated this way; it was worse than doing nothing actually.
—Parent of a 9-year-old girl, on their estimated 113th day at Dilley (January 15)
When we took part in a peaceful protest here, one guard here told us that they were going to charge all of us with crimes for obstructing the law and then separate all the fathers and send them to a prison if we ever did another protest. They also said they were going to use the cameras to identify who was participating in the protests. After hearing these threats, we felt overwhelmed with fear.
—33-year-old father of a four-year-old girl, on their 49th day at Dilley (February 11)
A couple weeks ago, when the congresspeople were here, the staff enclosed us in our room from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. At 12 p.m., they let us go to eat with guards flanking us on both sides to make sure we didn’t talk with the congressmembers.
That day, they passed around a list for people to sign up and talk with the congressmembers. We all wrote our names down, but staff only allowed two people from our hallway to talk with the congressmembers. We think they were punishing the people who were filing the most grievances by preventing them from speaking with them.
On that day, they didn’t even let my three children go outside to get medicine. Instead, they brought the medicine to our room. The nurse who came to our room said that [the] medical wing was closed for the day. She said, “This is the result of you guys for doing protests; this is the punishment…”
A few days ago, the officials here found out that I have spoken with reporters, and the staff have taken reprisal steps against my children and me.
For the past couple of days, my children and I have been locked down in our room. They put us on lockdown after a staff member pushed my daughter and took all of her coloring materials away.
This week, my young daughter wrote “liberty” on a piece of paper. One of the officers found me in the laundry room and told me that I needed to come to the recreation area with that paper. When I went there, a man named Officer __ took the paper and ripped it up. He said you cannot have papers that say this. Then, he threw it away. I told him I did not know that the children were not allowed to express themselves in writing. He told me that our family could have a report made against us for this. So, I apologized.
—31-year-old mother of 7-year-old boy, 9-year-old girl, and 15-year-old girl on their 49th day at Dilley (February 12)
Some families did a protest a few weeks ago. After the protest, the staff started searching our rooms. My 2-year-old had some crayons that another family had given her. CoreCivic staff confiscated her crayons and threw them away. She was crying. They said they were throwing away the crayons for our security and so the children would not write more letters about the conditions at Dilley. They also threw away our Tylenol, Advil, and VapoRub. They probably would have taken my daughter’s letters, too, but I keep them in a folder with all of our legal documents. I keep these documents with me at all times. A picture of two of my daughter’s letters are attached to this statement. They speak for themselves.
—34-year-old mother of two kids, ages 9 and 2, who had been at Dilley for more than 125 days (February 12)
I never got to see the little boy, Liam, when he was here, but I saw him on the news. I was happy when he was released, but I couldn’t help but think, “What about the rest of us?”
—33-year-old parent of children ages 14, 11, and 7, on their 53rd day at Dilley (March 11)
My 2-year-old has been having a severe medical issue. She has a swollen gum and an infected tooth, and has a fever anytime she isn’t taking ibuprofen from this infection. This has been going on since we arrived at Dilley, over 20 days ago. The top of her tooth is green at the root. I think the nerve there has been hit or opened…
When Congressmen Castro was here this past Monday, we begged for his help. He tried to advocate for us, Dilley ended up sending us to a hospital 15 minutes away. My husband went with my sick daughter. I had to stay here with my two other daughters.
Unfortunately, the hospital could not help. They just checked her blood pressure. The nurse at a hospital said this is not a dental clinic. They couldn’t help her.
The staff here think and say that I am beating my daughter, and that is why she cries so much. I tried to explain to them the toothache, but they threatened to separate us. They said if she keeps crying, we will take her away from you.
—22-year-old mother of 2-year-old, 1-year-old, and 10-month-old girls, on their 23rd day at Dilley (March 12)
The food here is really bad, but whenever reporters or congresspeople come they give us better food that they would never give us otherwise, like roast chicken, cakes, pizza, and ice cream. But that is just ICE hiding how it is the rest of the time to the outside world…
I have to pay to call my dad. There are times when we have Facetimed my dad and tried to explain what is happening and ICE cut the signal, like when we tried to tell my dad that they had locked us in our rooms because the congresspeople had come. This happened another time when we had a call with a reporter as well. I think they do not want us to share critical things about our experience here and interfere with these calls. The guards also completely change how they act anytime an outside congressperson or reporter comes. The guards start being kind to us and saying, “Hi,” which is something they would never do when they are not being watched…
If I stay in the US, I want to be an advocate for people who are innocent to get out of jail. I want to do whatever I can to make sure that more children do not get brought to places like this, because they are going to suffer.
—13-year-old child on their 86th day at Dilley (March 12)
