Dozens of immigrant families protested Saturday behind the fences of a Texas detention facility where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent this week after being detained in Minnesota.
Aerial photos taken by The Associated Press showed children and parents at the South Texas Family Residential Center clad in jackets and sweaters, some of them holding signs that included “Libertad para los niños,” or “Liberty for the kids.”
Families could also be heard outside chanting “Libertad!” or “Let us go,” said Eric Lee, an immigration attorney who was there to visit a client at the facility in the town of Dilley, south of San Antonio.
“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,” Maria Alejandra Montoya Sanchez, 31, told the AP in a phone interview from the facility after the demonstration. She and her 9-year-old daughter have been held at Dilley since October.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security have not responded to questions about the situation.
Federal authorities Saturday abruptly ushered visitors out of the facility, according to Lee, an attorney who planned to meet with his clients there.
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Lee said that about 30 minutes after he was told to leave the facility, a client inside the facility told him in a phone call that detainees had begun protesting the detainment of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and the treatment of people protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement across the country.
“When I was in the waiting room, waiting to meet [clients], I heard guards come out and say, ‘Everybody out right now,’” Lee told the Tribune. “They looked white faced. They were very concerned, obviously, by whatever was happening.”
Ramos was taken with his father to the facility after they were detained by immigration officials outside their home in Minnesota on Tuesday, an incident that ignited a nationwide uproar. Family and neighbors said federal agents used the boy as bait to get his mother to open the door. Government officials, however, called that account of events a lie.
Earlier Saturday, a federal immigration officer shot and killed a man in Minneapolis. That city has become the epicenter of mounting tensions over the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement in American cities. Saturday’s shooting came just weeks after an immigration officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, sparking nationwide protests, including in Texas cities.
As he left the facility, Lee said he heard children inside chanting “libertad,” Spanish for “liberty.” He posted a video on social media that appears to show people inside the facility shouting and then someone associated with the center telling Lee to stop recording.
“According to what I heard, they view this as part of this broader protest, and they’re appealing for help, and they’re appealing to the country and the world’s population to come to their support and free them all from this place,” Lee said.
Built in 2014, the South Texas Family Residential Center is currently the only family detention center in the U.S. After President Joe Biden ended the practice of detaining families, the facility shut down in 2024, but it reopened after President Donald Trump returned to office last year.
The detention center has faced criticisms of unsafe conditions from attorneys whose clients were held there and who reported potentially unsafe water and delayed medical attention.
“The current conditions at Dilley are fundamentally unsafe for anyone, let alone young children,” Neha Desai, managing director at the National Center for Youth Law, said in a statement. “Since the re-opening of family detention, hundreds of families – including babies and toddlers – have been subjected to substandard medical care, degrading and harsh treatment and extremely prolonged times in custody.”
The Trump administration sought to end protections for children held in detention that are in place through the Flores Settlement Agreement. The 1997 agreement requires that children be treated humanely and that officials should prioritize their release.
The Flores agreement received renewed attention during the first Trump administration, when federal officials implemented its zero-tolerance policy of charging all adults who illegally crossed the border with a crime. The policy led to the separation of adults from children, a practice that came to be known as family separation, in order to comply with the Flores agreement.
Though it prompted a national outcry, Trump’s hard stance on immigration in part propelled him to a second term in office.
As Trump has directed federal agents to carry out his promise of mass deportations, Texas has been an enthusiastic partner.
Officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety helped arrest more than 3,000 undocumented immigrants across the state in 2025. Sheriffs throughout Texas have also signed agreements to work with ICE and a new state law requires all counties to enter into such agreements.
One in four ICE arrests from Trump’s second inauguration through July 2025 occurred in Texas.
Texas also has the highest concentration of immigration detention facilities in the U.S. Over the last two months, ICE reported four deaths throughout their detention facilities including that of a 55-year-old Cuban detainee. His death was ruled a homicide by the El Paso Medical Examiner’s office.
Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.
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