Madonna, Pedro Pascal, Ms. Rachel Among Prominent Names Urging Closure of ICE Migrant Family Jail

“Children belong in schools and on playgrounds, not in detention centers,” their open letter states

An impressive list of entertainers, physicians, educators, and advocacy organizations are among the notable figures to have joined forces to issue an open letter demanding the “immediate” closure of Texas’ Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the privately-operated migrant family jail that has been accused of medical mistreatment and other serious abuses against children and parents in its custody.

“Children held in immigration detention endure trauma, neglect and conditions that violate basic standards of health, safety, dignity and human rights,” the letter states.

“The harms of detaining children are known and well documented. Court filings of abuse against children have included refusals to provide clean water, rotten food contaminated with worms, dangerous medical neglect, sleep deprivation, denial of legal counsel, the separation of children from their families, and retaliation against families protesting the inhumane conditions.”

“Children belong in schools and on playgrounds, not in detention centers.”

The letter urging the closure of the CoreCivic-operated migrant family jail has been signed by dozens of names, including entertainers Madonna, Pedro Pascal, and Jane Fonda; leading physicians like Dr. Anita K. Patel, a double board-certified pediatrician who has been using her medical expertise to bring attention to the dangers children face in detention; advocacy organizations including Tsuru for Solidarity, which is led by Japanese American internment camp survivors and descendants; and educators like Ms. Rachel, who in recent days has used her platform to help secure the release of a number of children from Dilley.

The letter, which was published at Change.org and has collected more than 215,000 signatures from the public, urges “the federal government and CoreCivic to close the Dilley facility immediately, return children and families to the homes and communities they were taken from and to end child imprisonment now.”

“Our commitment does not end with closure,” the letter continues. “We demand transparency, accountability, and systemic reforms to prevent these abuses from happening anywhere in the United States.” These abuses have included reports of a “racist work culture” where employees have served detained families worm-filled food and neglected sick children to the point of near-death.

One mom, Kheilin Valero Marcano, told NBC News in February that she feared for her toddler’s life after she became seriously ill – and only continued to deteriorate.

“It began with a fever, then a cough that wouldn’t ease. Her nose clogged with thick mucus. Her breathing grew strained and wheezy,” the report said. By the time that detention staff decided to get Amalia to a hospital, she had to be treated for pneumonia, Covid-19, RSV and respiratory distress. “Thank God,” Valero Marcano said when staff acknowledged Valeria needed urgent medical attention. “Because you haven’t done anything.”

Ms. Rachel, a children’s educator with nearly 20 million viewers on YouTube, said that she spoke over Zoom with a nine-year-old child who begged to be released from Dilley. He’d been abducted along with his family during what was supposed to be a routine immigration check-in. “He told her the food made his stomach hurt and that he missed his school classmates,” the San Antonio-Express News reported.

The child, Deiver Henao Jimenez, told Ms. Rachel that he wanted to get back home to New Mexico to compete in his state spelling bee. “If you could help us to leave … I don’t want to be here anymore,” the boy said. “Nothing is good here.”

Late last month, ICE finally did what it always had the ability to do: release Deiver and his family to continue their check-ins back home in New Mexico. The family’s attorney “said Deiver is eager to return to school, rejoin his gifted and talented classes and get back to practicing his spelling words,” NBC News reported.

The Biden administration did the right thing by shutting down Dilley, but this respite from family detention was brief, after the Trump administration partnered with CoreCivic to reopen Dilley under a lucrative federal contract expected to generate approximately $180 million in revenue annually, The Appeal reported. Since then, court documents have revealed that roughly half of the children jailed at Dilley under the current administration have been detained for longer than 20 days, which violates a decades-old court agreement dictating the treatment of migrant children in U.S. custody.

Child welfare experts have made clear that even short amounts of detention can be traumatic to children.

“Studies of detained immigrants have shown that children and parents may suffer negative physical and emotional symptoms from detention, including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder,” said the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Even after children are released from detention, post-traumatic stress symptoms can be long-term, negatively impacting their emotional, mental and physical health into adulthood.”

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos had been held at Dilley and continues to struggle with the trauma of his abduction and detention, his family and advocates say. “My boy is very different,” said his dad, Adrián Conejo Arias. His mom, Erika Ramos, said Liam Ramos “still lives in fear when he sees law enforcement,” People reported. “He sees police officers, and he says, ‘It’s ICE, Mommy,’ she said. No doubt adding to the agony this family is enduring is that they remain under target by the administration.

No child should be locked in detention, period. As the open letter states: “Children belong in schools and on playgrounds, not in detention centers.”