More than 750 families are being held in the internment camp in Dilley, Texas. It is the only facility in the United States where families are detained together. Letters came from there. Written by five year olds, nine year olds, fourteen year olds. No slogans, no legal objections. Just sentences like: “I miss my school and my friends. I feel bad since I came to this place because I have been here too long.” Or: “Since I have been in this center, you only feel sadness and especially depression.”
A twelve year old writes that at the doctor’s office they only hear they should drink more water. And that of all things the water makes them sick. A nine year old, 113 days in detention, puts it plainly: “I am not happy in Dilley, please get me out of here to Colombia.” A five year old draws several serious faces and writes underneath: “My family.”
“Since I have been here, you only feel sadness” - Voices from Dilley The handwriting is shaky, the lines crooked, some words misspelled. But what these children from the internment camp in Dilley put on paper is clearer than any press release. Ariana, 14 years old, writes that she has never felt such fear as in this place. She has been locked up for 45 days. Every day she thinks about what could happen to her mother and her younger siblings if they had to return to Honduras. Her little siblings have not seen their mother for over a month. “When you grow up, you need both parents,” she notes. And then the sentence that lingers: since she has been in this center, you only feel sadness and above all depression. Susej, nine years old, keeps it shorter. He writes that he misses his school and his friends. That he feels bad because he has been there too long. More than 50 days. A child does not count politics, it counts days. Or: another sheet shows a drawing: several faces, serious, close together. Above it is written “My family.” No sun, no playground, no home. Only family - as wish, as memory, as anchor. there are so many letters
Officials explain that there is adequate medical care, meals, education, basic supervision. The operator refers to inspections and oversight. But the children’s words speak for themselves. They report months without school, lost friendships, illness, the feeling of being stuck. Many had lived in the United States for years before they were arrested.
And then there is Amalia Arrietta,. 18 months old. According to a federal lawsuit, she became so seriously ill in the family camp in Dilley that she had to be taken to the hospital with acute respiratory failure. Multiple infections, critical condition, life threatening. For ten days doctors fought for her life. They discharged her with clear instructions: breathing treatments, medications, devices to stabilize lung function. Not a precautionary recommendation, but a condition for survival. Yet Amalia was brought back to Dilley. The lawsuit states that her prescribed medications and medical equipment were taken from her there. Treatments that doctors considered necessary were allegedly not reliably administered. Experts warned that keeping a medically fragile toddler in detention without secure access to her therapies represents an extreme risk - including a high risk of death.
This story stands next to the statistics on deaths in ICE custody under different administrations. It stands next to political comparisons. But here it is not about numbers. It is about a baby who nearly died. And it is about children like Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano. Ten years old, a fourth grade student in Columbia Heights, a suburb of Minneapolis. She was held in Dilley with her mother for a month. A few days ago, her release was secured. Mother and daughter are home.
Children Disappear on the Way to School – The Ongoing Case of Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano
Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano is 10 years old, a fourth grader in Columbia Heights, part of her school community since kindergarten. On January 6, in the first week after winter break, she left the house in the morning with her mother Rosa, on the way to school. She never arrived there. Immigration enforcement officers stopped them and took both of them with them. Elizabeth managed to call her father Luis. They told her she would be taken to school. He left immediately, waited in front of the building, spoke with the administration, with teachers, with the school leadership. Elizabeth did not come. At the end of that day, he learned that his daughter and his wife had already been transferred to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
The releases are relief for individual families. They do not change the fact that hundreds of children are still sitting there. That letters are being written speaking of sadness, depression, and homesickness. That medical allegations are in the room that a court will have to clarify. Anyone who calls themselves pro life cannot look past these cases. When an 18 month old child with respiratory failure is taken from a detention facility to a hospital and then returned there, that is not a debate for talk shows and press rooms. When a ten year old girl sits behind bars for a month, it is not a law under discussion, but a child.
Amalia survived. Elizabeth is free. Liam is free. Many others are not. The question remains: how many letters, how many hospital transports, how many releases under public pressure will it take before something fundamentally changes? We will keep fighting, every day, and work through every file with full commitment. At present we have more than 1,400 files, more than 100 of them involving children. America 2026 - what a declaration of bankruptcy.
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