ICE Raids Family Detention Dorms After Kids’ Letters Expose Abuse

Guards at an ICE detention facility in Texas raided the dorms of immigrant families Tuesday, in order to destroy children’s letters that threatened to shed light on the horrific living conditions.

The raid at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley was in response to a recent ProPublica report that featured letters written by the children held there, according to Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manriquez. 

Univision’s Lidia Terrazas shared a video on Instagram of 15-year-old Cariexis Quintero, who has the intellectual capacity of a 7-year old, discussing the raid. 

“They threw away all of my drawings,” she said tearfully. “My mom liked them.”

“They noticed we were writing letters asking for freedom,” Quintero’s mother said as she held up a pile of colorful scraps. She described how guards had “stormed” into her room searching for drawings and letters, and had torn what they found to shreds.

Thus far, no federal court complaint, legal document, or verified video recording of the raid at Dilley has been made public, according to the International Business Times.  

This week, ICE deported 2-month-old Juan Nicolás with his mother and father to Mexico, after the baby had been hospitalized for bronchitis during his time at the detention facility in Dilley. Earlier this month, the facility was also the site of a measles outbreak. 

In the original ProPublica report, children recounted their fear and anguish, as well as the facility’s poor food, unsanitary conditions, and lack of reliable medicine.

“More than 60 days … going to the doctor and that the only thing they tell you is to drink more water and the worst thing is that it seems the water is what makes people sick here,” wrote Ender, a 12-year-old detained at Dilley, in one of the letters. 

Even Fox News hosts are making a point to correct Vice President JD Vance these days.

In an interview with Vance on Tuesday, Martha MacCallum cited a Fox poll of 1,005 voters showing Democrats leading in generic congressional vote preference, 52–46.

“We’ve got a long way to go, but obviously that number would not be good,” MacCallum said.

“That would not be good,” Vance replied. “I will say, as much as we love Fox News, we always think Fox News has the worst polling. Me and the president agree on that.”

“I could show you other ones that are very similar,” MacCallum said.

MacCallum is right that the vast majority of polls indicate the GOP’s popularity is down across the country. A Cygnal Political congressional poll conducted in early February reports a 3 percent lead for Democrats over Republicans. Silver Bulletin’s congressional polling average, which aggregates thousands of similar polls, has Democrats leading by 5.4 percent.

That Vance and Trump believe Fox News “has the worst polling” is interesting, given the network is famous for its conservative slant. However, Fox’s polling operates independently of its programming, and is considered quite reliable by major outlets. The anger toward Fox perhaps stems from the disconnect between its laudatory programming and the poor popularity numbers suggested by its polls.

Thirty-nine-year-old MAGA Representative Lauren Boebert’s 20-year-old son has been arrested after her 2-year old grandson was found wandering around alone near her Colorado home on Sunday, which lies close to a lake. Boebert’s son, who was supposed to be watching the child, is facing misdemeanor charges of child abuse without injury for the second time. 

“A kind woman quickly and safely secured him, and authorities were called as a precaution,” Boebert said, telling 9News she was “very frustrated this happened.”

Boebert’s son, Tyler, is already awaiting trial on the same charge over another event  last year, which Boebert then described as “a one-time incident.” It was not. 

Boebert’s grandson was born when Tyler, then 17, impregnated a female minor who Boebert only described as “over the age of 14.” Two years ago, Boebert went on conservative talk show The Rubin Report and bragged about how “responsible” her son and the child’s mother were. With two child abuse charges—not to mention his 24-month probation after pleading guilty to his role in an identity theft ring in 2024 and a lawsuit for an alleged nonconsensual sex tape—that couldn’t be further from the truth for Tyler. 

ICE has deported 2-month-old Juan Nicolás with his mother and father to Mexico, despite the baby suffering from bronchitis while in ICE detention.

Nicolás’s mother spoke to Univision’s Lidia Terrezas by phone Tuesday, saying that they were left at the Mexican border with no phone and only the money they had in their commissary at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, an ICE facility where they were previously detained.

Terrezas said in an Instagram post that Nicolás is still sick and that his mother was only able to contact her because someone in the street let her use their phone.

“She is in distress, she’s panicking. They were sent to the same place they fled from,” Terrezas said.

In a follow-up post, Terrezas said that the family was able to pay for a hotel with their commissary money, adding that a GoFundMe is in the works to assist them. Texas Representative Joaquin Castro, who has been advocating for Nicolás and his family, said that he spoke with the family’s attorney and that they had just $190, in a post on X.

“To unnecessarily deport a sick baby and his entire family is heinous. My staff and I are in contact with Juan’s family. We are laser-focused on tracking them down, holding ICE accountable for this monstrous action, demanding specific details on their whereabouts and wellbeing, and ensuring their safety,” Castro said.

Nicolás had been vomiting and experiencing breathing issues while detained in an ICE facility known for unsanitary conditions, which also had a measles outbreak earlier this month. While the baby was sent to a hospital late Monday night, he was guarded by armed federal agents and released after only one day. His mother had to appear before an immigration judge the same day, where she was told they would be deported. Now Nicolás and his family have to fend for themselves.

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was given special treatment and provided with a room in a luxury hotel after Donald Trump pardoned him in December, ProPublica reported Wednesday.

Hernández, a member of Honduras’s right-wing National Party, was extradited to the U.S. in 2022 and sentenced to 45 years in prison on bribery and drug-trafficking charges two years later. Prosecutors said he enabled drug traffickers to “move mountains of cocaine” into the United States and used the millions of dollars in bribes he received for his political campaigns.

He cut a Trump-like figure in Honduras, attempting to overthrow the country’s Supreme Court in 2012 alongside a handful of other congressmen, in what was labeled a “technical coup” by local press. He was elected president in 2014, then reelected in 2017 amid accusations of electoral fraud.

His nationalist beliefs and lax economic policies—which Trump-aligned billionaires Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen have benefited from—are perhaps why Trump moved to pardon Hernández.

After Hernández, a noncitizen, was released from prison, a request to hold him in place until immigration authorities could arrive was waived by federal authorities. A team of officials was then paid overtime to escort Hernández from Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia six hours east, to the five-star Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. Rooms at the Waldorf go for $956 a night, at minimum.

Usually, people released from Hazelton are given a “a shitty bus ride or a cheap plane ticket,” one prison official told ProPublica.

Hernández’s lavish treatment appears even more amoral when compared to how the Trump administration treats other noncitizens who are detained. Immigrants are usually deported as quickly as possible, regardless of whether they possess a criminal record.

Hernández’s current location is unknown, though he has said on social media he does not plan on returning to Honduras. Maybe he can get a Cabinet position.