Wormy Food, Intimidating Guards, Sick Kids: Inside ICE’s Only Family Detention Center

Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the nation's only family detention center run by CoreCivic, has reopened under the Trump administration's $45 billion immigration detention expansion after being closed by the Biden administration in 2024. Dozens of sworn declarations from detained children and parents describe stomach-turning conditions including contaminated water, undercooked or wormy food, and lights left on continuously, making sleep impossible for young children. The facility held as many as 1,400 people earlier this year, though that number dropped dramatically this month, and advocates say abysmal conditions persist despite DHS and CoreCivic's denials and February statements describing the center as safe and family-friendly. Journalists remain barred from entering, and detainees' access to the outside world has been restricted, including confiscation of art supplies and loss of Gmail access. Legal aid group RAICES collected the oral declarations—made between June 2025 and February 2026—which are now being used in ongoing litigation and as primary evidence of what co-CEO Faisal Al-Juburi calls "the cruelest aspects of this administration."