As families arrive in ICE detention, rights groups detail history of medical neglect in facilities

The Trump administration has restarted the use of immigration detention for children and families after a more than three-year freeze on the practice. Two Texas facilities that used to hold families are reopening for that purpose again.

Families and unaccompanied children have still been held in facilities run by Customs and Border Protection and Health and Human Services. But the change this month marks the return of longer-term family detention in ICE custody — despite reports of medical neglect and other issues during its use in both the first Trump administration and the Obama administration.

The Biden administration stopped detaining families in 2021, but the two Texas facilities weren’t actually shut down.

On a press call Wednesday, Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights for Amnesty International USA, told reporters that since last week, rights groups have documented at least 12 families who have been detained at the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center, one of the two Texas facilities slated to be used.

“And many of the families that are detained and have been detained, are people that have been picked up in enforcement actions within the interior of the United States,” she said.

Fischer says that differs from past years — when those detained were mostly people who had just arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Dr. Alan Shapiro, senior medical director and assistant professor of pediatrics at the Bronx Health Collective, says during visits to family detention centers, he recorded a broad lack of access to medical care, mental healthcare, and legal assistance.

“I cannot overstate the desperation that we heard from the parents we interviewed, they expressed that they themselves suffered from depression and anxiety, and were showing symptoms of PTSD … many would actively weep during interviews,” Shapiro said. “I remember in one case, a mom was actively suicidal, told us she was suicidal, told the medical staff she was suicidal, yet still didn’t get the mental health care she needed.”

Shapiro said parents also expressed confusion about the immigration process and desperation over their inability to help their children. Detained children were found to have suicidal and self harm ideations.

Beatriz Batres, a community organizer with the advocacy group La ColectiVA, said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorde rafter being held in family detention in New Mexico roughly a decade ago.

"I can't imagine what this must be like for families facing this right now who don't have a support network and, out of fear of seeking help, don't seek it,” she said in Spanish. “Even when you have a support network, it's so difficult to be able to say ‘yes we're going to get through this,’ because you can't imagine. It's actually very difficult to respond to your children [when they ask] 'when is dad coming back?' Or if he's going to return one day — you have to remain whole so they don't see you go into crisis.”