A day after visiting a controversial immigration center in Texas for the first time, Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley renewed her calls for the facility’s closure and for the release of detainees held there.
On Tuesday, Pressley attended an oversight visit at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas alongside Rep. Joaquin Castro, a pediatrician, and several members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus. Following their visit, the members decried conditions within the facility and said they’re causing physical and emotional trauma for the detainees, including many children.
“We have to close Dilley, free the families and abolish ICE,” said Pressley Wednesday speaking to GBH’s All Things Considered.
Her renewed call for Dilley’s closure comes after a letter campaign earlier this month by more than 100 House Democrats urging Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to shut the facility down. Pressley, who has called for abolishing both ICE and private prisons, said ICE officials within Dilley described detainees held there as “low-level non-criminals,” prompting her to ask, “Why are they here at all?”
The U.S. representative from Massachusetts detailed meeting a teenager, Emily, who was detained with her father as they were on their way to church. She also described meeting a mother of two, Vanessa, who had been in an abusive relationship with her children’s father and lost custody of the girls to that man upon being detained. Vanessa, Pressley said, was detained eight months ago as she was dealing with a car issue while working her job as a delivery driver. Pressley explained that she was only using their first names to avoid identifying people at risk.
Congressional oversight visits, Pressley said, are crucial to keeping the public informed about the realities of immigrant detention facilities run by private companies under government contracts. Members of Congress are, by law, allowed to visit ICE facilities without prior notice, but they’ve increasingly been stopped at the door.
“I think that’s the thing that really incenses me, this harm is not naturally occurring, it’s manmade and it’s also financially incentivized,” she said. “People are profiting off of the unlawful detainment and deportation of children and families, and this for-profit system is for the separation of families, [and] is for child neglect, abuse and trauma.”
Dilley, dubbed the most expensive facility in the national detention network, first opened under the Obama administration, then closed under the Biden administration. It reopened in March 2025 under the Trump administration and became the focus of a ProPublica investigation into the lives of detained children.
In a statement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, pointed to a February press release and defended its handling of the facility.
“The Dilley Detention Center is retrofitted for families,” the statement said. “Children have access to teachers, classrooms and curriculum booklets for math, reading and spelling. All of this is generously funded the by the US taxpayer. Adults with children are housed in facilities that provide for their safety, security and medical needs.”
The statement added that detainees “are provided with three meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap and toiletries,” as well as access to phones to communicate with family members and attorneys.
“Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administrations’ immigration enforcement.”
CoreCivic, an American private prison operator, which manages the Dilley facility, pointed to a 40-year relationship with the federal government across the Democratic and GOP parties and said the facility is subject to “multiple layers of oversight” and monitoring to ensure compliance with government standards.
“We do not enforce immigration laws, make arrests or have any input into who is detained and for how long,” said CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin in a statement. “Those determinations are made solely by the federal government,” he said, adding, “We do provide a safe, humane and appropriate environment for the individuals in our care.”
Without specificity, Gustin argued that “many of the claims being made about [the Dilley Immigration Processing Center] aren’t supported by facts,” and pointed to a virtual tour of the facility, and a past press release outlining the facility’s operations.
