In January, after ICE detained 5-year-old Liam Ramos—with his blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack—and his father near Minneapolis, the two were sent to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the nation’s only detention center for families. Located on a flat, desolate stretch of land about an hour south of San Antonio, Dilley is a sprawling collection of trailers run by the private prison company CoreCivic. The facility held as many as 1,400 people, including young children, teenagers, and their parents, earlier this year.
About a week into the Ramoses’ stay at Dilley, Liam’s mother told reporters that he was vomiting, had a fever, and no longer wanted to eat. His increasingly dire situation immediately sparked public outrage, prompting protests and congressional visits. Soon, reporting by ProPublica, the Associated Press, and others reintroduced Americans to the poor conditions and substandard care that have long plagued the facility, which was closed by the Biden administration in 2024 but reopened last spring as part of the Trump White House’s $45 billion immigration detention expansion.
Stories about life inside Dilley are hard to come by. Journalists are not allowed inside, and until earlier this month, lawmakers were barred from conducting oversight visits unless they submitted an application a week in advance. The facility has reportedly clamped down on detainees’ access to the outside world, even confiscating art supplies; some detainees have lost access to Gmail. (The Department of Homeland Security and CoreCivic have denied these restrictions.)
Despite these challenges, there is another way to learn about the conditions at Dilley: sworn oral declarations given by dozens of detained children and their parents to legal aid groups.
The facility has reportedly clamped down on detainees’ access to the outside world, even confiscating art supplies; some detainees have lost access to Gmail.
Some of the declarations were exhibits in ongoing litigation; others were collected by RAICES, a nonprofit organization that provides legal services to families detained at Dilley, simply to provide a record. Taken together, they paint a bleak picture of life at the facility: stomach-turning food and water, a dangerous lack of medical and mental health care, impossible sleeping conditions, and intimidating treatment by guards. While the number of people held at Dilley dropped dramatically this month and educational options have improved, advocates say the abysmal conditions persist.
DHS and CoreCivic, meanwhile, have consistently refuted these claims. In late February, both groups published websites dedicated to Dilley, describing the detention center as a safe, family-friendly place where detainees have access to high-quality medical care, educational opportunities, toys, books, outdoor activities, and food for special diets and allergy needs. In a statement to Mother Jones, DHS added that drinking water is clean and baby formula is provided for free.
We went through hundreds of pages of the detainee declarations, which were made between June 2025 and February of this year, and pulled out some of the most telling excerpts. Many were translated into English by sworn interpreters.
“The reality is when we look back on this, these are the primary sources,” says Faisal Al-Juburi, co-CEO of RAICES. “These are the people who’ve been impacted by some of the cruelest aspects of this administration.”
You can’t drink the water here. The smell is bad, and it hurts our stomachs a lot. We have to buy it at the commissary if we have money. In the dining area, there is milk and juice, but there isn’t water. The guards say: “This is all that there is. If you don’t like it, buy it at the store.”
—26-year-old mother of 5-year-old girl, on their 30th day at Dilley
They say the water is drinkable, but it’s not. We are all without drinking water. It has a fake smell, like perfume or lotion. Maybe it’s chlorine, I don’t know. If you drink it, your stomach hurts so badly. More than anything, I worry for the kids. If you don’t have money, you can’t buy bottled water from the store. Then you just don’t drink water.
—26-year-old mother of 8-year-old girl, on their 17th day at Dilley
The main complaint I have here is the water. Every time I want a bottle of water for my baby’s formula, the guards tell me I have to go to medical. I have to get a piece of paper that says my baby needs a bottle of water.
—27-year-old mother of 6-month-old girl, on their 12th day at Dilley
Some staff will give me bottled water for my daughter’s formula and some will not. My daughter drinks about six bottles per day. This morning, I was asking staff for bottled water for the baby’s formula. The guard said I should use water from the faucet. The doctor was nearby, so I asked the doctor and she told the guard to give me the bottled water. But instead of giving me the entire bottle of water so that I could also use it for another bottle later, the guard poured the water into the baby’s bottle and kept the rest of the water bottle.
—25-year-old mother of 1- and 2-year-old girls, on their 31st day at Dilley
My younger son does not eat the food here; he is hungry all the time. He will only accept breast milk and it is not enough for him. He is growing. He is 2 and a half, and he needs to eat. I often worry that I will stop being able to produce breast milk for him. I hardly sleep and I am anxious all the time; I don’t know what we would do. My toddler is losing weight very quickly.
—Mother of 2- and 7-year-old boys, on their 36th day at Dilley
My brother doesn’t eat anymore, so he needed PediaSure. My parents had to almost beg the medical staff to give him PediaSure. He doesn’t like the food served here, and neither do I.
—14-year-old girl detained with 7-year-old brother and parents, on their 54th day at Dilley
We were given wormy food, and when someone spoke out about it and said that the children should get better food, he was taken in the middle of the night and threatened that he and his family would be separated. Officers told him that he would go to an adult detention center and his children would go to foster care.
—Father of 4-year-old boy, 11-year-old girl, and 13-year-old boy, on their 45th day at Dilley
Sometimes there are strange things in the food, and it seems like strange parts of an animal that shouldn’t be in the food. But many children do not eat the food here. It worries me when there are so many small children who are just not eating.
—42-year-old mother of 14-year-old boy, during their third week at Dilley
I have been served raw meat at Dilley. I noticed this when I was cutting into it. Another person was served raw meat, but you didn’t have to cut into it to see how raw it was. Another person said they found worms in their beans. I stopped eating the beans since then. One woman became so sick from eating the food that she began vomiting blood. Another woman had to take antibiotics for an infection she got from the food being served to us here at Dilley.
—49-year-old mother, on her 63rd day at Dilley
The lights are on all night here. My son cries all night almost every night because it is so hard for him to sleep with the lights on. This has been going on for two months straight. I tried to hang a towel up to hide the light from my son, but the supervisors immediately tore it down and threw it away. They said I couldn’t do that.
—22-year-old mother of 2-year-old boy, on their 52nd day at Dilley
Our room now has 12 people in it. It’s totally packed. We talked to the therapist and guards about moving rooms, and they said we can’t move. It’s very uncomfortable. We can’t sleep. The TV is on high volume all the time.
—14-year-old child with mother, on their 41st day at Dilley
We’ve tried to find a manual and have asked why adults and children have to sleep with the lights on. They keep the temperature very low, and adults and children are constantly sick and are unable to get better…Sometimes the officers will turn on their walkie-talkies near the children’s rooms at 2 or 3 in the morning. Sometimes they’ll walk into the room and talk loudly on their walkie-talkies for no reason.
—Father of 4-year-old boy, 11-year-old girl, and 13-year-old boy, on their 45th day at Dilley
It is impossible to get good rest here. The guards check on you every 20 minutes. One guard in particular comes into our room every 20 minutes and says exactly the same sentence. He wakes us up—it doesn’t matter if my children are sleeping or I am sleeping. He comes in and says: “Hi, my name is ___. If you need anything, contact me. I am checking that everything is okay with you.” Every 20 minutes. Now it just feels like a mockery and he is just coming in to make it impossible for us to get any rest.
—33-year-old mother of 8- and 10-year-old boys, on their 24th day at Dilley
At about 6 in the morning, they start yelling your name for count, and that wakes us up as well. Some guards seem to not have patience with the children. Being in this place, I feel like a bad mother for having them in these conditions. I always ask my children for forgiveness for making them suffer through all of this.
—Mother of 2-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl, on their 90th day at Dilley
After being at Dilley, [my 13-year-old son] Carlos became anxious. He couldn’t sleep—he began to suffer from nightmares and insomnia. He was waking up five times during the night, yelling for me every night. Carlos also began to pee himself in bed. Carlos has been wetting the bed at night for the last 12 days…[The psychiatrist] prescribed pills for Carlos. I do not know the name of the pills. They are to relax him and help him sleep better. But these pills are affecting him a lot because now he sleeps all day. Today, for example, I had to wake him up to bring him for this meeting, and it was already late morning. Before he started taking the pills, Carlos woke up at a normal time in the morning. Since [the psychiatrist] gave him this prescription, he sleeps until 11 unless I wake him up. Even the caregivers come to give papers or meds and he is sleeping. One time, the caregivers found him asleep on the floor. They thought he was hiding, but he was sleeping. I often have to wake him up so he can go have lunch…I just want my son to be okay. I don’t want him to be overmedicated or to be suffering from insomnia. I want him to be a normal child.
—31-year-old mother of 3-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy, on their 19th day at Dilley
My kids are terrified; we are all depressed, staying here just waiting for our fate. My older son is suffering so much. He is only 7 years old. He is sensitive, but since being detained, he cries constantly, he is volatile and emotional. We were so worried for him that we took him to the psychiatrist here, who prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotics. I think a kid of his age should not be taking this type of medication. But since the doctor told us it could help, he has been taking it, but it hasn’t helped. He is still so unable to regulate his emotions that the psychiatrist increased his dosage. He keeps telling us he just wants to get out of here.
—Mother of 2- and 7-year-old boys, on their 36th day at Dilley
There was another mother who was having such a hard time. She went to get help from the medical staff, and they gave her a pill to take in the morning and in the night. It just put her to sleep. She slept day and night, and her 3-year-old and 6-year-old just stayed in their bedroom all day and night. They couldn’t go by themselves to get food in the cafeteria, so they just took the snacks from the fridge with snacks and juice to eat for days. The kids didn’t bathe or leave the room because they had to be in the room with her, and she was practically drugged and sleeping from the medicine they gave her to take. I was able to help her a little bit and tell her she had to keep going for her kids and that she should do everything possible to stay awake—take a cold shower, anything. I said if the medicine is making things worse for you, if it makes you feel dead, you should stop taking it. She started to get a little better and then finally was able to stay awake and started taking care of her kids. She gave me a big hug and she said thank you for helping me. But the medical services did not help her and instead made things terrible for her and her children. And none of the staff helped with her children during that time either. But anyone could see what was going on.
—42-year-old mother of a 14-year-old boy, during their third week at Dilley
There are moments where my daughter and I are having a normal conversation and she gets quiet and just says: “Mom, when will we leave? When are we getting out? How many more days?” I’ve noticed a change in her attitude and personality, mostly because she is so tired all the time. She can’t rest properly. She doesn’t cry, she is just quiet and thinking. She is withdrawn. She is on and off with the other kids. Sometimes there is interest from her to play with them, but then she just wants to sit alone for a long time.
—26-year-old mother of 8-year-old girl, on their 13th day at Dilley
There was recently a measles outbreak at the detention center where we were “quarantined” for about 20 days. They did nothing to help reduce the spread of this. We were not even given masks to help prevent us from getting sick. We were also not put in isolation; it was business as normal. The only thing they did in those 20 days was check some people’s temperature using the same thermometer without even cleaning it before putting it on others’ faces directly. It almost felt like they were intentionally trying to infect us.
—Mother of 16-year-old boy, on their 47th day at Dilley
While here, a staff member was mopping and accidentally hit [my 6-year-old daughter] with the end of the mop in the cheek and eye. A little bit of blood left her eye. We went to medical. We saw the receptionist wrote on the intake papers that she “fell while playing.” I told her that isn’t true, she got hit by a staff worker here who was mopping. The person mopping did it by accident; it was not intentional. I didn’t want him to get in trouble, but I do want staff to be more careful, especially when working around little kids. The injury happened on a Sunday, but there is not a pediatrician here on Sundays. Medical said we’ll call you on Monday, the next day, when the pediatrician is here. No one called us Monday. They called us Tuesday. They said her eye is fine, but my daughter still says it bothers her sometimes. We are worried she will have long-term eye issues. The other day, she spilled a drink on herself and when we asked what happened, she said my eye isn’t working, I couldn’t see it. She sometimes she tells us that it itches, hurts, or causes her vision to be blurry.
—30-year-old mother of 6-year-old girl, on their 23rd day at Dilley
My 4-year-old son…hit his head and developed a black eye while in custody. He also began experiencing symptoms including vomiting and dizziness, but he had not received any medical scans or diagnostic tests regarding his head injury. I am very concerned that he may have suffered a head concussion and his condition has not been adequately addressed.
—Father of 3-, 4-, and 6-year-old children, on their 20th day at Dilley
My daughter has inflammation in her heart, something called acute pericarditis…I told them about this condition when we first got here. But the medical staff did nothing. When I take her to the medical area because she is in pain, they do not attend to her. We have been consistently denied medical attention for her condition. We got tired of going and being rejected, so I just give her Tylenol to help ease her pain, since it helps. Her pain is persistent. When she feels anxiety and when she sees that we are still here while other people are leaving, her condition acts up. She has fainted about three times, and the officers come and take her to the clinic…I am scared that something grave will happen to her here. There are moments when she gets worse and I am scared she will faint and be unconscious. I am scared for her life.
—Mother of 2-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl, on their 90th day at Dilley
I go every day to school. It’s just the basics: addition and subtraction. I feel like I am losing my education here. I was in ninth grade before I came here. If I had to go back to my country now, I’d have to repeat the grade because of all the school I’ve lost.
—14-year-old child with mother, on their 41st day at Dilley
I don’t want to go to the school at this place anymore because the teacher told me that every month, they start repeating the work from the previous month, since new kids are coming. So if it just repeats, I don’t get to learn anything new.
—11-year-old child, on their 53rd day at Dilley
There is not a school here. There is a place for the children to go for an hour where the teachers seem to be trained to get information out of them about their immigration cases rather than teach them. One of my daughter’s friends told her that the homework was to write a story about why she was scared to go back to her country. That is not healthy for my daughter or any of the kids to write about. The questions about immigration they ask the kids during class are not proper. What does ICE have to do with math?
—31-year-old mother of 9-year-old girl, on their 46th day at Dilley
My son went to the classroom at the beginning, but every time he would go, the teachers would ask him about his case. It was just additional stress for him, so he stopped going about a month ago. He was not learning anything anyway. Children should have a daily class to at least be learning English. That class was basically just addition, subtraction, and coloring.
—32-year-old mother of 14-year-old boy, on their 56th day at Dilley
I have been living in Florida and Texas for 10 years. I was just starting my junior year. Things were going great in school. I had made new friends, and I was doing really well…I don’t go to the classroom here; it’s not anything like my high school or the education I had before. It is just one hour a day, and I don’t know what they would teach high school students who have been going to school in the US. If I was at my high school, I would be learning statistics, American history, astronomy, English, AP Spanish, and entrepreneurship.
—16-year-old child with mother, on their 22nd day at Dilley
There was a protest because there were families that had been here a long time and their cases were not being solved. They did not know what was happening, so the conditions got bad, people got upset, and all the kids were sick. Leading up to it, there was a sickness going around making people vomit and have diarrhea, so it was bad seeing all the kids in these conditions. After all of that, we all demanded that we wanted liberty and better treatment…We have not committed crimes nor infractions; we did not want to be treated like criminals. The guards, I would say close to 100, during this time threatened us, saying they would bring charges against us, that they could see who was involved by checking the cameras. It was a lot of verbal abuse and the consequences we would face for our actions.
—Father of 4-year-old girl, at Dilley for at least six weeks
Yesterday, the staff and officers suddenly started cleaning everything up. There were a lot of staff and officers sitting around and we didn’t know why. And then all of a sudden, they got up and they started playing with kids and organizing games. It was so strange. It’s not usually like that. I think it may have been because you, the Flores lawyers, all were here. It’s usually a disaster. Things are messy, the bathrooms are not very clean. There are balls, but children can only play with them in certain spaces, like in the gym, but not outside. Yesterday, things were very different. Normally, it takes a long time to get something if you request it, like if you need a new shirt or something. But yesterday, we got many of the things we had been asking for for days.
—42-year-old mother of 14-year-old boy, during their third week at Dilley
The staff intimidate us. For example, staff will say that if ICE comes and sees our room is messy, they are going to make us cry. Other staff have discouraged us from submitting grievances, saying those people “come out last.” Another staff told a resident that if she didn’t stop letting other residents use her email, they would take away her daughter.
—31-year-old mother of 9-year-old girl, on their 46th day at Dilley
We are scared to ask for anything, because the officers start threatening us that they’ll put us in different detention centers and put our children in foster care…It feels like we were in fascist Germany, and it feels like they are going to put gas into the room and just let us die.
—Father of 4-year-old boy, 11-year-old girl, and 13-year-old boy, on their 45th day at Dilley
