Many Americans were alarmed recently when immigration officers in Minneapolis took custody of a 5-year-old boy and sent him and his father to a Texas detention center. But he was no outlier.
The government has been holding hundreds of children and their parents at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, about 75 miles south of San Antonio. Some have been detained for months.
The Department of Homeland Security has strongly defended the quality of care and conditions there.
Here are key findings from an Associated Press report on how the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement is shaping life inside the facility.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement booked more than 3,800 children into detention during the first nine months of the new Trump administration, according to an AP analysis of data from the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project.
On an average day, more than 220 children were being held, with most of those detained longer than 24 hours sent to Dilley. More than half of Dilley detainees during the early part of the Trump administration were children, the AP analysis found.
Since being reopened last spring, the number of people detained at Dilley has risen sharply and reached more than 1,300 in late January, according to researchers. Nearly two-thirds of children detained by ICE in the early months of the Trump administration were eventually deported.
The government is holding many children at Dilley well beyond the 20-day limit set by a longstanding court order.
“We’ve started to use 100 days as a benchmark because so many children are exceeding 20 days,” said Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at Children’s Rights, who visits Dilley regularly to ensure compliance. In a visit this month, Welch said she counted more than 30 children who had been held for over 100 days.
When the Obama administration opened Dilley in 2014, nearly all the families detained there had recently crossed the border from Mexico.
But many of those now sent to the facility have lived in the U.S. several years, according to lawyers and other observers, meaning children are being uprooted from the familiarity of schools, neighborhoods and many of the people who care for them.
Parents and children recounted stressful conditions inside Dilley, including experiences that raise questions about the quality of care being provided.
A 13-year-old girl cut herself with a plastic knife after staff withheld prescribed antidepressants and denied her request to join her mother down the hall, the mother told the AP.
Another mother said when her 1-year-old daughter developed a high fever and vomited, medical staff repeatedly offered only acetaminophen and ibuprofen before she was eventually admitted to hospitals with bronchitis, pneumonia and stomach viruses. ICE disputed her account, saying the baby “immediately received proper care.”
Other families described more routine problems, like the difficulty of getting children to sleep in quarters where lights are kept on all night and of stomach aches caused by foul drinking water.
Both adults and children described the often overwhelming stress of being detained that has caused many to despair.
DHS did not respond to detailed questions about Dilley submitted by the AP. But both DHS and ICE sharply refuted allegations of poor care and conditions in statements issued this week.
“The Dilley facility is a family residential center designed specifically to house family units in a safe, structured and appropriate environment,” ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement.
Dilley provides medical screenings and infant care packages as well as classrooms and recreational spaces, ICE said.
Once in full operation, Dilley is expected to generate about $180 million in annual revenue for CoreCivic, the for-profit prison company that operates it under contract with ICE, according to the company’s recent filing with securities regulators.
In response to questions from the AP, a CoreCivic spokesman said no child at Dilley "has been denied medical treatment or experienced a delayed medical assessment.” The company said detainees receive comprehensive care from medical and mental health professionals.
The increased detention of families comes as the Trump administration has gutted an office responsible for oversight of conditions inside Dilley and other facilities.
In years past, investigators found problems at Dilley, including consistently inadequate staffing and disregard for the trauma caused by the detention.
A special committee recommended that family detention be discontinued except in rare cases, and the Biden administration began phasing it out in 2021. Dilley was closed in 2024. But in reopening it, the Trump administration has completely reversed course.
Andrea Armero, left, watches her daughter play on monkey bars in a park in Colombia, on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday in what President Donald Trump said was a massive operation to destroy the country’s military capabilities and eliminate the threat of it creating a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it would defend its homeland and its Revolutionary Guard said it launched counterattacks, firing drones and missiles at Israel and strikes aimed at U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
The strikes came after Trump has pressured Tehran for a deal to constrain its nuclear program, building up a fleet of American warships in the region as the country struggles with growing dissent following nationwide protests.
At least 57 people were reported killed and 45 others wounded at a girls’ school in southern Iran in the Israeli-U.S. strikes, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile attack on the capital of the United Arab Emirates killed one person, state media said.
Israel announced it had launched an attack on Iran shortly after explosions were heard in Tehran on Saturday morning. One of the first strikes hit near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It wasn't immediately clear where Khamenei was at the time; he hadn't been seen for days.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC News that Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian are alive “as far as I know.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described the attacks that took part across the country as being done “to remove threats.” Iran’s military, symbols of government and intelligence sites were targeted, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information.
Sirens wailed across Israel to warn the public about possible incoming missile strikes.
Bahrain said a missile attack targeted the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in the island kingdom. Witnesses heard sirens and explosions in Kuwait, home to U.S. Army Central. Explosions could be also be heard in Qatar, where Al Udeid Air Base hosts thousands of service members.
Iraq and the United Arab Emirates closed their airspace, and sirens sounded in Jordan.
An apartment building in northern Israel was damaged and shrapnel fell in multiple sites, according to media and police. But Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said there had been no significant hits in Israel and rescue services said there were no injuries reported from missile barrages across the country.
Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, meanwhile, have vowed to resume attacks on Red Sea shipping routes and on Israel, according to two senior Houthi officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement from leadership.
It took over an hour for Trump to make an official announcement on the U.S. involvement in what he termed “major combat operations.”
In an 8-minute video on social media, Trump indicated the U.S. was striking for reasons far beyond the nuclear program, listing grievances stretching back to the beginning of the Islamic Republic following a revolution in 1979 that turned Iran from one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East into a fierce foe.
Trump told Iranians to take cover but urged them to later rise up and topple the Islamic leadership.
“When we are finished, take over your government,” Trump said. “It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
The attacks came a day after Trump voiced frustration over lack of progress in negotiations to stop Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons.
Israel said it had worked with the U.S. for months to plan the attacks.
Before U.S.-Iran negotiations were underway in Geneva, the U.S. had assembled a vast fleet of fighter jets and warships in the region to try to pressure Iran into a deal over its nuclear program.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three guided-missile destroyers arrived in January to bolster the number of warships in the region. The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and four accompanying destroyers later were dispatched from the Caribbean to head to the Middle East and are now in the Mediterranean.
The fleet has added more than 10,000 U.S. troops to the region.
The fighting disrupted air travel in the region.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates, home to both the long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad, closed their airspace Saturday. Qatar Airways Group said it has temporarily canceled flights to and from Doha because Qatari airspace also was closed.
Planes en route to Israel were rerouted to other airports.
Virgin Atlantic canceled its flight from London's Heathrow Airport to Dubai and said it would avoid flying over Iraq, meaning flights to and from India, the Maldives, Dubai and Riyadh could take slightly longer. Virgin Atlantic said all flights would carry appropriate fuel in case they need to reroute on short notice.
Turkish Airlines said on X that flights to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Jordan will be suspended until Monday and flights to Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman would be suspended on Saturday.
Dutch airline KLM previously said it was suspending Tel Aviv flights starting Sunday.
People sits in a shelter after warning sirens sound following Israeli strikes on Iran, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Vehicles drive along a highway following Israeli and U.S. strikes in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Vehicles queue outside a gas station following Israeli strikes in the city, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke rises on the skyline after an explosion in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026.(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
