ICE Is Detaining Hundreds of Children

The number of children in federal immigration custody has risen sharply since family detention resumed under the Trump administration. Cases include a 7-year-old taken from a hospital emergency room and held in Texas for three weeks, a 5-year-old seized at a laundromat and flown to Texas, and a teenager who had lived in the United States for a decade and was detained at his family home.

As of mid-January, about 1,400 people were at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, including Edison, a 13-year-old from Chicago. Dilley, a complex of trailers and soft-sided tents roughly 70 miles south of San Antonio, was built in 2014 and became the main site for family detentions.

The Biden administration stopped using the facility in 2021 and closed it in 2024; the Trump administration reopened it last year. Since reopening, about 3,500 adults and children have passed through Dilley; RAICES said that mid-January occupancy included about 500 children, 450 parents and roughly 450 single women held in a separate part of the center.

United States, Texas

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