Emergency medical calls from the Dilley Immigration Processing Center reveal a pattern of severe pediatric distress, including cases of respiratory failure, seizures, and fractures. According to EMS call logs and 911 audio obtained by NBC News, staff summoned help for young children and pregnant women between October 2025 and February 2026. The calls involved children with symptoms such as respiratory distress, fever, lethargy, allergic reactions, leg fractures, low oxygen levels, and seizures. In at least three cases, children were transferred more than an hour away to a specialized pediatric hospital in San Antonio. A 22-month-old in respiratory distress was in such serious condition that first responders wanted to fly him by helicopter but could not due to bad weather, according to the records. The children involved ranged in age from 2 months old to 13 years old, with most calls involving low oxygen levels and respiratory distress, while one call reported a pregnant woman having a seizure.
The Dilley facility, run by private prison firm CoreCivic, has a contentious history marked by policy shifts across administrations. The center was opened by the Obama administration in 2014, scaled back by the Biden administration in 2021, and closed three years later before being reopened by the Trump administration last spring. Joe Biden's administration stopped holding families at the facility in 2021. Since reopening, the number of detained families at Dilley has risen sharply, with children held beyond the 20-day court limit and many detainees having lived in the U.S. for years, according to lawyers and other observers. The Trump administration implemented new rules last year leading to increased detention times for immigrant children, multiple reports indicate. Roughly 6,200 children have been placed in ICE detention since the beginning of Trump's second term.
Individual cases illustrate the human toll of these policies, with families detained far from home and children held for months. A young Ecuadorian mother and her 7-year-old daughter were detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center for a month after being sent 1,300 miles from their Minnesota home. Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy, was detained by ICE agents in Minneapolis and sent to Dilley with his father, but they were released after 10 days following intervention by members of Congress and a judge. Christian Hinojosa and her 13-year-old son were held at Dilley for more than four months before being released. Olivia, a 19-year-old asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has been at Dilley for more than four months after being apprehended with her family in November, separated, reunited at Dilley, and separated again after ICE agreed to release them but not her. Her brother Manuel drowned during her family's journey from South America to the U.S., and her family fled political persecution in DRC, stopped in South America, and arrived in the U.S. in December 2022. Olivia was living in Maine with her family, had graduated high school, and completed a nurse's assistant certification before their asylum case was denied and they were detained at the northern border.
Systemic issues at Dilley include inadequate conditions, operational secrecy, and a lack of due process, according to advocates and official reports. Emergency crews have been dispatched to Dilley nearly a dozen times in six months for medical emergencies, call logs reviewed by ProPublica and NBC News show. Nearly 600 children have been held at Dilley with inadequate food and medical care, often beyond court limits, court documents state. A report found pervasive abuses at Dilley, with over 5,600 people imprisoned there between April 2025 and February 2026, including toddlers and newborns, according to a report by Human Rights First and RAICES. Dilley has been criticized for lack of proper healthcare and food, with reports of measles cases and a sick 2-year-old not getting help, multiple reports indicate. The detention center has come under fire after the hospitalization of two infants, including a two-year-old girl whose parents say was denied medicine.
Family separation cases continue to emerge, with one Venezuelan mother, referred to as Flora, facing deportation after alleged trafficking. Flora has applications for asylum and a trafficking victim visa in process, multiple reports indicate. She was arrested at a routine check-in in January and separated from her two children, aged 18 months and four. Flora's lawyers allege her due process rights were violated because she is not a flight risk or danger and was not given a hearing before detention. According to a habeas petition, Flora was allegedly raped, forced into unpaid labor, and abused by her trafficker after arriving in the U.S. in 2023. Her alleged trafficker, who impregnated her and promised to live as a family, is free, the petition states. According to Caroline Pizano, Flora escaped her trafficker last year with help from police and a non-profit, but he later found her in Maryland.
Airport arrests have increased under collaboration between the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. TSA staff alerted ICE to a Guatemalan mother and her 9-year-old daughter at San Francisco's airport, leading to their arrest, reportedly. The arrest occurred hours before President Trump deployed ICE agents to transit hubs, but San Francisco officials called it an isolated incident unrelated to the surge, multiple reports indicate. Under the Trump administration, TSA provides ICE with names and birth dates of travelers believed to have removal orders. Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter Wendy Godinez-Jimenez were arrested at San Francisco airport after TSA flagged their flight to Miami, The New York Times reports. A Homeland Security spokesperson said Lopez-Jimenez had Guatemalan passports matching a 2019 removal order and attempted to flee and resist officers during arrest.
Deportation failures highlight systemic neglect, with ICE often failing to ask parents about their children before removal. A 22-year-old pregnant woman was deported to Honduras without being asked about her 2-year-old daughter left behind, according to a report from the Women's Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights. A 27-year-old woman arrested at a traffic light was not asked about her children before deportation, the same report states. ICE fails to follow policies requiring officers to ask arrestees about their children to decide their fate upon deportation. The Trump administration revised guidelines so ICE only supports children joining deported parents if 'operationally feasible,' but still must ask about children, the report notes. More than half of parents interviewed said ICE never asked about their children during arrest, detention, or removal.
Child abuse in the system is documented in a case where a 3-year-old girl was allegedly sexually abused in foster care after being separated from her mother at the border and detained for five months, according to court documents and the father. The girl's father, a legal permanent resident, faced delays in reunification and was not fully informed about the abuse, multiple reports indicate.
Another detention case involves Tania Warner and her 7-year-old daughter Ayla, who were detained by ICE for nearly three weeks in Texas facilities. Warner and Ayla were held with families from various countries, fostering camaraderie among detainees, according to Tania Warner. She described detainees suffering months of imprisonment with no due process, fear of separation, and no hope of freedom. Warner was pressured by guards to 'self-deport' while at Dilley, multiple reports indicate. Warner and Ayla were detained at a border patrol checkpoint in Sarita, Texas, despite Warner claiming her documents are in order, and they were later released on a $9,500 bond.
An Afghan interpreter family faced arrest based on an FBI tip without presented evidence. Zia, an Afghan interpreter who worked with U.S. forces, was arrested by ICE last summer after a green card appointment and spent nearly three months in ICE custody before release in October. Zia's son Rihan, a Connecticut high school student, was arrested by ICE on April 6 and moved to a Massachusetts facility. Government lawyers in a court filing said Zia's arrest followed an FBI tip about national security risk, but no evidence was provided in court. The family entered the U.S. in 2024 with humanitarian parole due to Taliban threats, according to the family's legal team.
Statistical analysis reveals the scale of prolonged detention, with more than 900 children held in ICE facilities beyond the 20-day court limit, a new report states. Advocates use 100 days as a benchmark for detention because many children exceed 20 days, according to Leecia Welch. In February, over 30 children at Dilley had been held for more than 100 days, she said. A Russian family at Dilley was told they wouldn't be held more than 20 days due to children, but were detained longer, multiple reports indicate. The El Gamal family has been detained at Dilley for nine months, longer than any other family since reopening, their lawyer said.
Congressional criticism has mounted, with Democratic members of Congress warning that the Dilley detention center is growing more secretive under new DHS leadership, with cruelty and inadequate medical treatment persisting. Rep. Joaquin Castro said Dilley staff used scripts and refused to answer questions during a congressional visit. Lawyers, immigration advocates, and pediatricians have warned that the Dilley detention center is not suitable for children, research indicates.
Legal and humanitarian concerns are escalating over prolonged detention policies. The number of detainees at Dilley dropped to roughly 100 last month from January's average of over 900, but over 300 people including 77 children are currently held, according to advocates and lawmakers. A 2-month-old boy with bronchitis was deported to Mexico with his mother and sister after being released from a hospital during their stint at Dilley. ICE confirmed at least two measles cases inside the facility last month. Parents of a toddler with low oxygen refused to be transported, research shows.
Key unknowns remain, including what specific evidence or basis exists for the FBI tip that led to Zia's arrest on national security grounds. It is unclear how many total children are currently detained at Dilley beyond the 20-day court limit, and what the exact durations of their detentions are. The specific medical protocols and staffing levels at Dilley to handle emergencies like respiratory distress and seizures have not been disclosed. The current status and outcome of Flora's asylum and trafficking victim visa applications are unknown, as is the number of families separated at the border under the Trump administration's policies and their reunification rates.