Immigrant families protest at Texas facility housing 5-year-old boy, father detained in Minnesota

Immigrant Families Protest at Texas Detention Center After 5-Year-Old’s Detention

Dozens of immigrant families staged a protest Saturday at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent this week following their detention in Minnesota.

Aerial photographs captured by The Associated Press showed children and parents wearing jackets and sweaters in the cold weather, some holding signs reading “Libertad para los niños” (“Liberty for the kids”). Immigration attorney Eric Lee, who was visiting a client at the facility, reported hearing families chanting “Libertad!” or “Let us go!”

“The message we want to send is for them to treat us with dignity and according to the law. We’re immigrants, with children, not criminals,” said Maria Alejandra Montoya Sanchez, 31, who spoke to the AP by phone from the facility. She and her 9-year-old daughter have been held at Dilley since October.

The detention of Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, has become a focal point in America’s intensifying immigration debate. The case has drawn national attention after federal officials detained the kindergartner in Minnesota on Tuesday. Conflicting accounts have emerged between government officials and the family’s attorney regarding whether the parents were given adequate opportunity to arrange alternative care for the child before detention.

Montoya Sanchez said she briefly saw the father and son outside during the protest. The family’s attorney, Marc Prokosch, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security also did not provide immediate comment on Saturday’s events.

According to Montoya Sanchez, the demonstration was organized internally by families frustrated with prolonged detention and what advocates describe as substandard conditions at the facility. These reportedly include food contaminated with worms, widespread illness among detainees, and insufficient medical care. Lee later heard from his detained clients that the protest was specifically connected to Liam Conejo Ramos’ case.

Lee described being in the facility’s waiting room for a scheduled client visit when guards abruptly ordered everyone to leave. “That children and their parents would risk retribution under these conditions to speak up is a testament both to how courageous they are and how abysmal the conditions of this place is,” he said.

The protest comes amid heightened tensions surrounding immigration enforcement. Earlier Saturday in Minneapolis, a federal immigration officer shot and killed a man, drawing hundreds of protesters into the streets despite freezing temperatures. This incident has further inflamed tensions in a city already shaken by another fatal shooting weeks earlier.

The South Texas Family Residential Center has come under scrutiny for its treatment of detained families and children. According to a December report filed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an ongoing federal lawsuit, hundreds of children have been held at the facility beyond court-mandated time limits.

The Dilley facility is one of the largest family detention centers in the United States, designed to house immigrant families while their immigration cases proceed through the courts. Critics have long argued that detaining children, regardless of their immigration status, can cause lasting psychological harm and violates international human rights standards.

Immigration advocates maintain that alternatives to detention, such as community-based case management programs, are more humane and effective for families seeking asylum. However, federal immigration authorities have defended family detention as a necessary component of border security and immigration enforcement.

As the protest at Dilley unfolded, immigrant rights organizations across the country continued to call for systemic reforms to U.S. immigration policies, particularly regarding the treatment of children and families in detention.