Democrats Tour Texas Detention Holding a 2-Month-Old, Call Conditions 'Inhumane'

What Democrats Say They Saw

The congressional delegation was led by Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, whose home state hosts the facility, and included several members who emerged from the visit visibly shaken and ready to talk. Rep. Luz Rivas of California, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, held a press conference and said in Spanish that 'for the people of the United States, we don't want to see our government, or ICE officials, acting like domestic terrorists.' She noted that her Los Angeles district has seen more ICE raids than anywhere else in the county.

The letter signed by 111 House Democrats, sent earlier this month, lays it out in stark and specific terms. Fox News, which broke this story, published the letter's contents directly. 'Parents describe horrendous conditions at Dilley, leading to severe depression, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation amongst their children,' the letter reads. 'Children have reported that their food is often contaminated with worms and mold and that they feel sick after drinking tap water.' The lights in detainee rooms, the letter says, are kept on all night. Medical care provided by the private prison company CoreCivic is 'delayed, denied, and in many cases outright dismissed, even when children are suffering life-threatening medical emergencies.'

Think about that list for a second. Worms in the food. Round-the-clock lights. A 2-month-old in a detention facility. This is not a description of neglect. This is a description of a deliberate system designed to break people.

Pressley Goes Full Defiance Mode

Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, a member of the Squad, did not exactly stick to measured congressional language. She called Trump a 'dictator' and his administration 'fascist,' and demanded Americans 'resist, reject, condemn at every turn.' She also called for the abolition of ICE entirely and, going further, said agents who caused 'injury, harm, and even fatalities' must be held personally accountable, and that qualified immunity for federal immigration officers should be abolished.

'The only way to beat a dictator is with defiance,' Pressley said, according to Fox News. That framing will, predictably, send conservatives into orbit. Republicans have spent months arguing that Democratic rhetoric is directly responsible for rising tensions and violence against ICE agents. The counterargument Democrats are making, which Fox News also includes in its own reporting, is that ICE is operating as a 'rogue agency outside the bounds of the law.' Both things can be simultaneously true and yet somehow the children eating wormy food remain the ones in cages.

Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, used a separate hearing to call for abolishing ICE and dismantling DHS entirely, framing it around the question of what any parent would do for a dying child. These are not subtle or restrained political positions. They are, however, a fairly rational response to a 2-month-old in a detention cell.

DHS's Defense: We Got Them Sippy Cups

The Department of Homeland Security pushed back on Democratic characterizations of the Dilley facility with a statement it had issued previously. The statement did not address the specific allegations about worm-contaminated food, lights left on all night, or denied medical care. It did, however, want you to know about the sippy cups.

'The Dilley facility is retrofitted for families,' DHS said in its press release. 'Children have access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets for math, reading, and spelling. They have access to age-appropriate books, toys, and outdoor activities.' The statement added that infant care packages include 'formula, baby food, bottles, diapers, wipes, and hygiene items,' and that 'the facility also provides sippy cups and cribs.' DHS accused Democrats of lying about conditions at the center.

Look, sippy cups are not nothing. But 'we provided sippy cups' is a strange rebuttal to 'children are describing suicidal ideation and eating food with worms in it.' One of these responses is a policy defense. The other is a press release written to look like one.

The Money Behind This

The facility in Dilley is run by CoreCivic, the for-profit private prison corporation that has made billions operating detention centers for the federal government. The Democrats' letter calls out CoreCivic by name, accusing its staff of denying medical care to children facing life-threatening emergencies.

This is the part of the immigration debate that often gets lost in the shouting over rhetoric and resistance. Someone is getting paid to operate this facility. Someone is turning a profit on detaining a 2-month-old. The Trump administration is not running a grim detention system reluctantly or out of necessity. It is a customer of a private corporation that has a financial incentive to cut costs, and the things that get cut when you are trying to maximize profit in a detention center are things like medical care and food quality. The House Republicans just cleared a hurdle toward securing $70 billion in ICE funding, according to Fox News. Some of that money is going to end up in CoreCivic's quarterly earnings.