Nearly 600 immigrant children were detained in a Texas family detention center in recent months under deeply troubling conditions including inadequate food, medical care and mental‑health support with dozens held far beyond court‑mandated limits, according to new court filings submitted Friday.
The reports detail harsh conditions inside the Dilley Family Detention Center, where 5‑year‑old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were sent earlier this year. Children and parents endured virus outbreaks and repeated lockdowns throughout December and January, even as the overall number of detainees at the facility began to decline.
Ramos’s case the preschooler in a blue bunny hat taken into custody in Minnesota by ICE sparked outrage nationwide and even prompted detainees inside Dilley to stage small protests, holding signs behind the chain‑link fences that surround the compound.
Despite a recent drop in numbers, concerning conditions persist. When Mishan Wroe, directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, visited in mid‑March, about 85 children remained detained. In early February, a legal advocate counted around 280 children, highlighting the rapid turnover and ongoing instability.
The filings describe several distressing cases, including that of a 13‑year‑old girl who attempted to take her own life after staff allegedly withheld her prescribed antidepressants and denied her request to be reunited with her mother. Government records claimed there had been “no placements on suicide watch,” but discharge documents obtained by the Associated Press listed “suicide attempt by cutting of wrist” and “self‑harm.”
These revelations come as part of the long‑running Flores lawsuit, first filed in 1985, which led to the 1997 settlement establishing federal standards for the treatment of migrant children including a 20‑day limit on detention. The Trump administration continues to push for an end to the Flores agreement.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security dismissed the settlement entirely, saying, “For years, the Flores consent decree has been a tool of the left that is antithetical to the law and wastes valuable US taxpayer funded resources. Being in detention is a choice.”
Attorneys for detainees countered with government data showing children being held longer than ever, alongside reports of worms in food, poor access to medical care, and insufficient legal support conditions they say violate both federal standards and basic human dignity.
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