Children Held for Months at Dilley in Breach of Flores Limits; Judge Appoints Independent Monitor Over ICE and CBP

What Happened

The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, operated for ICE by the private prison company CoreCivic, reopened in March 2025 and is the only family detention center in the country (Texas Tribune). The Flores settlement, a long-standing court agreement that governs federal custody of immigrant children, generally limits how long children may be held in such a facility to 20 days.

Months, Not Days

On August 12, 2026, the Texas Tribune reported that about 3,000 children were detained at Dilley in its first year after reopening and that more than half were held longer than 20 days. At least 60 children were held for more than 100 days. Among the cases it documented:

• A 16-year-old, described as an "average American kid," whose parents are college psychology professors with green cards since 2016, was held for 123 days. The family was detained after Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked foreign policy grounds based on the grandmother's 47-year-old connection to the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
• An Egyptian mother and five children, none of whom were charged with any crime, were held for 323 days after the father was accused by prosecutors of throwing Molotov cocktails at a pro-Israel demonstration in Colorado. They were released in April 2026.

Children told lawyers and reporters about cockroaches, spiders and mosquitoes in their rooms, moldy food with worms, staff who "routinely yell at children," a child left with 13 untreated cavities, poor schooling, weight loss and worsening mental health. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who has made seven oversight visits, called the facility "in perpetual violation of the law."

The Court Steps In

An estimated 1,560 minors were held longer than 20 days at Dilley over a six-month period. A Scripps News investigation had earlier counted more than 300 juveniles held beyond the 20-day standard in October 2025. Fox 26 reported average stays ranging from 23.5 to 47.5 days. Of 64 medical grievances filed by residents between August 2025 and May 2026, "none were found in favor of the resident" (Fox 26).

In August 2026, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee said she had "serious concerns" that ICE was not complying with the settlement. "The fact that the monthly averages have been over 20 days for five consecutive months is particularly concerning," she wrote (Fox 26). She cited inadequate health care, including delayed treatment for appendicitis, a two-year-old with lingering diarrhea and fever, and a 10-year-old with a heart murmur waiting weeks to see a cardiologist (Scripps News). She appointed former U.S. Attorney Andrea Sheridan Ordin as special master and Stanford pediatrician Dr. Paul Wise as independent monitor. Their authority covers Dilley and CBP facilities in the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso and San Diego, and they can make unannounced visits. They will issue quarterly reports. At CBP facilities, Fox 26 reported 156 minors held beyond the 72-hour limit in March 2026 and 164 in May 2026.

The Government's Response

A DHS spokesperson said the judge was "trying to demonize" agency personnel and that "being in detention is a choice," and urged parents to use the CBP Home app to leave the country (Scripps News). DHS has called the Flores settlement "a tool of the left that is antithetical to the law," and the administration argues in the Ninth Circuit that it is "outdated" and amounts to "judicial micromanagement." ICE attributed long stays to a "small number of detainees" it considers national security risks. CoreCivic said it does not control how long people are held and pledged to cooperate with the monitors (Texas Tribune, Scripps News).

Legal Analysis

The Flores settlement is a binding federal court order. Holding most children at Dilley beyond its 20-day standard, and some for close to a year, is a sustained failure to comply. That is why the court has now put in place outside monitoring, which is an unusual step. The suggestion that "detention is a choice" amounts to telling families to give up pending asylum and immigration claims as the price of getting their children out of a locked facility.

Internationally, Article 37(b) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the United States has signed but not ratified, provides that detention of a child may be used only as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate time. Articles 9 and 24 of the ICCPR, which the United States has ratified, prohibit arbitrary detention and require special protection for children. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said "there's no humane way to detain a child" (Texas Tribune).