Grilles, sad faces and a single request: “Let us go. This is how one of Hayam El-Gamal’s five children illustrates his experience after more than eight months in the only center for migrant families still operating in the United States.
The facility, located in Dilley (Texas), about 130 kilometers south of San Antonio, was closed for several years during the term of former President Joe Biden (2021-2025) and was reopened by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump as part of his campaign to speed up migrant arrests and deportations. This is Dilley, the only detention center for migrant families.
More than 1,400 people are being held at Dilley, among them some 400 minors, including infants still breastfeeding.
And they live in inadequate conditions, now aggravated by an outbreak of measles, four lawyers who have represented or represent migrants at the center told EFE.
“No real medical care.”
The public made noise for Liam Ramos and it got him released from Dilley.
Now we must make noise for 7 year old Diana Crespo.
Her parents were taking her for emergency medical care when ICE grabbed them, and she’s rotting in the camp sick and exposed to measles.
Get them out! pic.twitter.com/8wFC5UDyTn
– Kelly (@broadwaybabyto) February 6, 2026
Hayima Al-Gamal and her five children, the youngest two five-year-old twins, were transferred to Dilley, a facility operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after being arrested by federal authorities in Colorado in June of last year.
Hayima’s husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, is being charged by the government with carrying out an attack on a group of people participating in a pro-Israel march in Colorado.
Hayima and her lawyers maintain that the family had no knowledge of her husband’s plans, and an FBI agent corroborated this in federal court.
In these months in detention, while their lawyers fight to prevent the government from deporting them to Egypt and approving their asylum application, the family has experienced firsthand the lack of adequate medical care at the center, Eric Lee, one of their lawyers, told EFE.
Dilley migrant family detention center
One of Hayima’s 16-year-old sons had appendicitis and when he asked the staff for help, “writhing in pain”, “they told him to take two paracetamol”.
It wasn’t until he “almost passed out, fell to the floor and started vomiting,” that he was rushed to the hospital, Lee recounted.
The El-Gamal’s experience is consistent with what Javier Hidalgo, an attorney with the NGO Raices Texas, which provides legal services to dozens of families detained in Dilley, has heard from detainees.
“There is no real medical care,” Leal said, “almost every child has some symptom of illness at some point, as the place is a real germ hotbed.”
After confirming two measles infections, the government closed the center a few days ago.
Since then, lawyers say, there has been little transparency about the situation inside.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told EFE that medical personnel are “monitoring” the detainees and taking necessary steps “to prevent the infection from progressing.”
“All detainees are receiving proper medical care (…) this is the best health care many aliens have ever received in their entire lives,” said Tricia McLaughin, a DHS spokeswoman.
Leal expressed doubt about the government’s willingness or ability to confine the center for an extended period to contain the infection: “It’s something they didn’t do even during the pandemic.”
“A prison for children.”
A drawing made today by a 5 year old girl at Dilley detention ctr & member of the El Gamal family (mom & 5 kids detained for almost 8 months). This child turned 5 in detention & has spent almost 20 % of her life in jail.
“Let us go!” pic.twitter.com/rNvGDTlF39
– Eric Lee (@EricLeeAtty) January 26, 2026
The El-Gamal children’s drawing of the prison is a reflection of the impact that prolonged detention has on minors.
A study published in 2025 in the British Journal of Psychiatry, which analyzed the effects of immigration detention on minors in several countries, revealed that 42% of children in these conditions suffer from depression.
Veronica Franco, an immigration attorney based in Houston, has seen that the damage to the minors’ mental health remains even after release.
She defended a Nicaraguan family, father and mother and a 7-year-old child, who spent more than a month in Dilley after being detained at an annual checkpoint with ICE in San Antonio and despite having a pending asylum application.
“Most of the time, these people are not seen as human beings,” he recounted.
This includes the loss of the school process for minors, who, according to lawyers consulted by EFE, only receive a book and an “educational” packet to do daily exercises, but no accompaniment from a teacher.
The detention of migrant minors in the U.S. increased sharply during the first year of Donald Trump’s administration.
According to the Deportation Data Project, between January and October of this year there was a monthly average of 170 children arrested, compared to 25 during the last 16 months of the Biden Administration.
“I think the phrase, ‘There’s a children’s prison in the U.S.’ should be enough to (alarm) everybody,” insisted Chris Goodman, an attorney at Lee’s firm and also representing the El-Gamal family.
Filed under: Dilley migrant family detention center
With information from EFE
