ICE Cracks Down on Detained Families After Kids’ Letters Expose Abuse

Guards at an ICE detention facility in Texas raided the dorms of immigrant families Tuesday, in order to destroy children’s letters that threatened to shed light on the horrific living conditions.

The raid at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley was in response to a recent ProPublica report that featured letters written by the children held there, according to Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manriquez. 

Univision’s Lidia Terrazas shared a video on Instagram of 15-year-old Cariexis Quintero, who has the intellectual capacity of a seven-year old, discussing the raid. 

“They threw away all of my drawings,” she said tearfully. “My mom liked them.”

“They noticed we were writing letters asking for freedom,” Quintero’s mother said as she held up a pile of colorful scraps. She described how guards had “stormed” into her room searching for drawings and letters, and had torn what they found to shreds.

Thus far, no federal court complaint, legal document, or verified video recording of the raid at Dilley has been made public, according to the International Business Times.  

This week, ICE deported two-month-old Juan Nicolás with his mother and father to Mexico, after the baby had been hospitalized for bronchitis during his time at the detention facility in Dilley. Earlier this month, the facility was also the site of a measles outbreak. 

In the original ProPublica report, children recounted their fear and anguish, as well as the facility’s poor food, unsanitary conditions, and lack of reliable medicine.

“More than 60 days … going to the doctor and that the only thing they tell you is to drink more water and the worst thing is that it seems the water is what makes people sick here,” wrote Ender, a 12-year-old detained at Dilley, in one of the letters.