Seized Art, Eavesdropping Guards: Parents Describe a Clampdown at Dilley Detention Center as Kids Shared Their Stories

When guards appeared earlier this month outside the room Christian Hinojosa shared with her son and other women and children at the immigrant detention center in Dilley, Texas, she guessed what they might be after. She quickly donned her puffy winter jacket, then slipped a manila envelope inside it. “Thank God the weather was cool,” she said — the jacket didn’t raise suspicions. Then, she said, she was instructed to leave the room while eight to 10 guards lifted up mattresses, opened drawers and rifled through papers. In the envelope were kids’ writings and artwork about life in America’s only detention facility for immigrant families, a collection of trailers and dormitories in the brush country south of San Antonio. She planned to share their letters with the outside world. Guards have taken away crayons, colored pencils and drawing paper during recent room searches at Dilley, according to Hinojosa and three other former detainees, along with lawyers and advocates in contact with the families inside. Guards have taken artwork, too, they said — even one child’s drawing of Bratz fashion dolls. They said detainees have lost access to Gmail and other Google services in the Dilley library amid stepped up searches, seizures and restrictions on communications, making it more difficult for them to contact lawyers and advocates. They and family members said guards sometimes hover within earshot during detainees’ video calls to relatives and reporters. Seven-year-old Mathias Bermeo, a detainee at Dilley wrote: “I’m writing this letter so that you can hear my story. I need you to help us I have been detained for 23 days with my mom and my 3-year-old sister. I cry a lot I want to get out of here go back to my school they don’t treat us Well here there are many children we are kidnapped help!” Obtained by ProPublica. Alien Registration Number redacted by ProPublica. The detainees and others interviewed for this story said these measures increased after the Jan. 22 arrival of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old in a blue bunny hat, sparked protests and congressional visits. They said the clampdown intensified as children and parents at Dilley wrote letters to share with the public and reporters and relatives recorded video calls with the detainees, including those published by ProPublica this month. The children’s stories, many told in their own words, fueled an outcry over the scope of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign, which the president had promised would focus on criminals. The detainees said the more they tried to make their voices heard, the more difficult it became. One mother, who asked to remain anonymous because her immigration case is still pending, told ProPublica that she and her three kids watched through a window as guards swept through their room in late January, removing drawings from the walls and placing colored pencils and crayons in plastic bags before taking them away. With little schooling available at Dilley and weather too chilly for kids to want to play outdoors, drawing had been the children’s main diversion, the former detainee said. “What were they going to do now?” she said. “They were so bored.” After the room inspection, the woman said, the children just “cried and cried and cried.” A detainee at Dilley wrote, “I feel bad being here! Bad because I can’t because I can’t see my pet willi and I can’t eat what I want and I can’t see my friends from school and at home.” Obtained by ProPublica CoreCivic, the private prison company that runs the Dilley facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a written statement that routine inspections of living facilities are a common practice and that detainees are informed of what items they are allowed to have in their rooms. “We vehemently deny any claims that our staff have confiscated or destroyed children’s personal artwork or their related supplies,” the statement reads, adding that there are examples of kids’ artwork “proudly displayed” throughout the facility. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement that “ICE is not destroying children’s letters,” but the agency acknowledged that in one case “all the written items in the cell were seized” as part of an investigation of a mother who DHS said refused to comply with a search and pushed a detention center employee. CoreCivic referred questions to DHS when asked about this incident. ProPublica was unable to reach the mother for comment. This week, DHS issued press releases that it said were “correcting the record” about Dilley, saying “adults with children are housed in facilities that provide for their safety, security, and medical needs.” DHS’ and CoreCivic’s statements to ProPublica did not answer questions about Google services being blocked or whether guards listen in on Dilley detainees’ calls. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, visited Dilley after Liam and his father, both originally from Ecuador, were picked up in Minnesota and transferred in January. He went again last week and was asked at a Friday news conference about reports of children’s letters and drawings being suppressed. “I believe those stories, because I’ve heard similar stories myself,” Castro said. He said he’d been told repeatedly that guards had warned detainees not to talk to him. “Yes, I think there’s a lot of secrecy there,” Castro said. DHS did not respond when asked to comment on Castro’s assertion about the guards. A CoreCivic spokesperson said, “We are not aware of any staff member warning residents not to speak with Rep. Castro.” Justin Lopez created what appears to be a floorplan of a room inside Dilley, with labels for windows, couch, television and phone. Obtained by ProPublica The Dilley Immigration Processing Center first opened during the Obama administration primarily to hold families that had just crossed the border. Then Biden ended the practice of detaining families in 2021. President Donald Trump restarted it even as border crossings in his second term hit record lows. Now ICE is ramping up immigration arrests inside the country, and Dilley holds many families who have been living in the United States for years. The families spend their days behind a metal fence, sleeping in rooms that hold six bunk beds and a common area with a few small tables and desks. More than 3,500 people have cycled through the detention center since the Trump administration began sending families here last spring. Hear Christian Hinojosa in Her Own Words: “It’s Not Only About Me. It’s About My Kid.” Christian Hinojosa and her son Gustavo speak with ProPublica reporter Mica Rosenberg from inside Dilley on Feb. 2. Mica Rosenberg/ProPublica A ProPublica reporter who had been speaking with families at Dilley since late last year went to the center for an in-person visit in mid-January and asked families whether their children would want to write about their experiences. On Jan. 22, we received a packet of colorful drawings and handwritten letters from a detainee who had been recently released, which we later published. Then on Jan. 24, dozens of detainees staged a mass protest in the yard, which was photographed from above, where they yelled “libertad” and held up hand-drawn signs. The signs were made using the detention center’s art supplies, former detainees said. That protest and Liam’s detention triggered widespread media coverage and a visit by Castro, who arrived on Jan 28. Supporters gathered outside Dilley, and some clashed with state troopers. At the beginning of February, Liam and his father were released, and ProPublica published the letters it had received. By that time, it had become clear to detainees that their voices — especially children’s voices — had gotten broad public attention. “We were looking for help,” said Hinojosa, who collected letters at ProPublica’s request. “We were looking to be heard.” Hinojosa, along with her 13-year-old son, Gustavo, both originally from Mexico, were released in early February after four months at Dilley to return home to San Antonio. (Although a 1990s legal settlement holds that children should generally not be detained for more than 20 days, DHS has said the settlement should be terminated because newer regulations have addressed the needs of child detainees.) “My parents say it’s been 4 months but for me and my little sister,” a 9-year-old wrote in one of the letters Hinojosa gathered. “It feels like a year I just want to go to the United States to be with my grandparents and finally end this nightmare.” “I’m writing this letter so that you can hear my story,” a 7-year-old wrote in another of the letters. “I need you to help us … I cry a lot. I want to get out of here go back to my school.” “I see how they treat us like criminals,” wrote Edison, a seventh grader from Chicago who was born in Guatemala, “and we’re not.” While detained at Dilley, 7-year old Diana wrote: “I lived in oregon We were detained in a hospital parking lot I feel bad because I miss my stuffed animals I don’t want to be here and I miss my friends and also miss my teacher and my house and my bed. we are not criminals I’m a very pretty girl.” Obtained by ProPublica. Alien Registration Number redacted by ProPublica. CoreCivic said that Dilley residents are given a written description of property they’re allowed to have in their living areas, and that decorating rooms with personal items is permitted “provided they do not present a health or safety hazard.” Former detainees told ProPublica they experienced room searches before January but that they typically were carried out by just two employees at a time, not eight or more. After guards searched Hinojosa’s room following the protest, she said, she and the other residents were unable to locate their colored pencils, which were purchased at the commissary and stored in a little cup atop the writing table where the kids liked to doodle. “Even knowing that we had paid for those ourselves,” she said, “they removed them.”