Art work is displayed as a delegation of House Democrats hold a news conference, Monday, March 9, 2026, in San Antonio, calling on the Department of Homeland Security to release families who are being detained at the Dilley Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Center. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Congress has made a decision that will permanently shape the lives of thousands of children.
Earlier this month, Congress approved $38 billion in new funds to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement through the remainder of the current administration. This is in addition to the $75 billion allocated to ICE in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Part of this additional funding will be used to detain families in federal immigration facilities — places where children are routinely subjected to dangerous and inhumane conditions.
Collectively, our organizations represent children protected under the Flores Settlement Agreement, the decades-old framework that set basic standards for the treatment of children detained in immigration custody. At its core, Flores requires that children are held in safe and sanitary conditions and released without unnecessary delay.
We are some of the only people in the country who are allowed inside these facilities to speak with the children detained there. Children courageously tell us what they endure in federal custody. Over the past year, since the Trump administration reopened the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, those stories have been heart-wrenching and terrifying.
Children describe prolonged detention, inadequate medical care and conditions that leave them physically ill and psychologically devastated. They tell us about untreated infections, worsening chronic conditions and the heavy weight of long days that stretch into weeks and months with no end in sight. They describe, in heartbreaking detail, their anxiety, depression and a growing sense of hopelessness and despair.
A 13-year-old told us plainly: “Every day that I remain here is destroying my hope for my life.”
A 10-year-old with a chronic disease was denied proper medical care and diet resulting in no bowel movements for over a month. A two-year-old with an infected gum cried relentlessly from pain and fever when medical staff refused to treat her for more than 23 days.
These are not isolated accounts. They are part of a pattern we have documented again and again through nearly 100 declarations from children and parents filed in federal court.
Hundreds of children have been detained at Dilley far longer than the general 20-day timeframe required by the court in Flores, and families have raised more than 700 medical concerns to immigration services lawyers. Yet the government’s official statements continue to assert that Dilley is safe, in compliance with legal obligations and that no serious issues exist. There is a profound gap between what the government claims and what children tell us in their own words.
It is no accident that while seeking billions more in funding for ICE, the government simultaneously asked the courts to terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement, eviscerating the limited protections and transparency that currently exist.
Eliminating Flores would remove one of the last safeguards standing between children and indefinite, unchecked government detention. On top of the congressional vote to give ICE billions more taxpayer dollars, the government’s efforts to dismantle Flores would entrench and expand a system that unquestionably, irrevocably harms children.
Public awareness of the horrors of family detention has grown over the past year, in part because more people are hearing directly from the children and families detained at Dilley. That awareness matters. As we have seen, public outrage can play a huge role in holding our government accountable.
There is still time to speak out, contact your representatives, attend town halls and share what is happening to the children behind the walls of Dilley. The collective voices of every American who cares about children, and the moral character of our country, matter now more than ever.
Neha Desai is managing director of the National Center for Youth Law. Leecia Welch is chief legal counsel for Children’s Rights. Edward Barsoumian is a community advocate at the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
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