Screaming children could apparently be heard behind the fences of a Texas immigration detention center.
According to the Associated Press, dozens of immigrant families protested Saturday (Jan. 24), behind the fences of the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, where children and parents could be heard chanting “Libertad!” or “Let us go,” as they demonstrated against their detention.
Aerial photos showed families in jackets and sweaters holding signs such as "Libertad para los niños" (“Liberty for the kids”) at the facility where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent earlier in the week after being detained in Minnesota, according to immigration attorney Eric Lee, who was there to visit a client.
Lee, who shared videos of the purported screaming outside of the detention center, later wrote on his X account, “As my tweets about the Dilley protest go viral, pls note: The clients I was visiting have been detained for 8 MONTHS. That may be a Dilley record. Includes twin 5-yr-olds, 9 yr old, 16 yr old and 18 yr old plus mom. In jail for something their dad did, not them. Name: El Gamal.”
Maria Alejandra Montoya Sanchez, 31, who has been held at the facility with her 9 year old daughter since October, told the AP in a phone interview after the demonstration, “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.”
The detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, on Tuesday (Jan. 20) in Minnesota has fueled the fire of immigration debates under the Trump administration. Government officials, the family's attorney and neighbors all offered conflicting accounts on the abduction.
CBS News was able to determine that the father and son are both being held at the Dilley detention center based on their “alien numbers” or “A numbers.”
Montoya Sanchez said she briefly saw Arias and Ramos outside during the protest. She also said the demonstration was organized internally by families exhausted by long detention and conditions that advocates say have included food with worms, constant illness and insufficient medical access.
Lee said he later heard from clients inside that the protest was related to Liam Conejo Ramos' case and said he was in the waiting room for a scheduled visit when guards ordered everyone out.
“That children and their parents would risk retribution under these conditions to speak up is a testament both to how courageous they are and how abysmal the conditions of this place is,” he said.
Hundreds of children have remained at the facility longer than the court-ordered time limit, according to a December filing by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an ongoing federal lawsuit.