McALLEN, Texas — Adults fighting kids for clean water, despondent toddlers and a child with swollen feet denied a medical exam — these first-hand accounts from immigrant families at detention centers included in a motion filed by advocates Friday night are offering a glimpse of conditions at Texas facilities.
Families shared their testimonies with immigrant advocates filing a lawsuit to prevent the Trump administration from terminating the Flores Settlement Agreement, a '90s-era policy that requires immigrant children detained in federal custody be held in safe and sanitary conditions.
The agreement could challenge President Donald Trump's family detention provisions in his ''big, beautiful'' bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, which also seeks to make the detention time indefinite and comes as the administration ramps up arrests.
''At a time when Congress is considering funding the indefinite detention of children and families, defending the Flores Settlement is more urgent than ever,'' Mishan Wroe, a senior immigration attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, said in a statement Friday.
Advocates with the center, as well as the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, RAICES and Children's Rights contacted or visited children and their families held in two Texas family detention centers in Dilley and Karnes, which reopened earlier this year.
The conditions of the family detention facilities were undisclosed until immigration attorneys filed an opposing motion before a California federal court.
The oversight of the detention facilities was possible because of the settlement, and the visits help ensure standards compliance and transparency, said Sergio Perez, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. Without the settlement, those overseeing the facilities would lose access to them and could not document what is happening inside.
Out of 90 families who spoke to RAICES since March, 40 expressed medical concerns, according to the court documents. Several testimonies expressed concern over water quantity and quality.