WASHINGTON — Rep. Joaquin Castro has made seven visits to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, a sleepy town southwest of his San Antonio district, since the Trump administration reopened it last year. He’s met immigrants there who’ve garnered national attention and outcry, from teenage mariachi-performing brothers to five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, detained wearing a bunny hat and a Spiderman backpack.

But in his visits to the immigration lockup, Castro has encountered plenty of detainees whose stories stuck with him despite receiving little to no media attention. Four pregnant women he met earlier in the year who were gone the next time he visited, either deported or released. Venezuelan migrants whom he thought about after the recent deadly earthquakes that devastated Caracas, wondering how their family members had fared as they were behind bars. A two-month-old infant who had spent nearly half his life in Dilley, the country’s only facility that imprisons immigrant parents with their children.

When he walks between the sprawl of trailers where immigrants are held, Castro said, “people will come up, and they’ll tell us their stories. You have kids that are really stonefaced — that’s their way of dealing with everything. And kids that are very emotional, crying. People will often break down in their conversations with us.”

The remote South Texas lockup reopened weeks after President Donald Trump issued an executive order on the first day of his return to the White House ordering the government to use all “legally available resources” to prop up more immigration detention centers. In the year and a half since, Trump’s mass deportation push has jailed a growing number of undocumented immigrants. Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported holding an average of 65,000 people across their facilities each day, up from about 37,000 two years ago under the Biden administration.

As the detention population has swelled, so too have the number of deaths in custody and allegations of neglect, mistreatment and inhumane conditions inside the facilities.

The list of people who can enter ICE detention facilities is limited beyond agency officials and staff for the private prison companies contracted to run most centers. Members of Congress and their staff are part of a select list that otherwise consists of medical providers, detainees’ legal representatives, friends and family during limited hours, consular officials and clergy.

Most of the Democrats in Texas’ congressional delegation have visited at least one facility, and some, including Castro, have brought along colleagues from out of state. In the 2025 fiscal year, members of Congress made over 160 oversight visits, according to Axios, using the authority far more than they ever did in Trump’s first term.

For the members, the limited number of people who can get inside facilities gives their oversight visits additional weight. Whatever they relay from their personal observations, conversations with detainees and questioning of officials is among the public’s only window into what occurs inside federal detention facilities. Some detainees also see the visiting members as a lifeline to get their case heard.

Department of Homeland Security officials have maintained that immigrants receive quality care while in ICE custody.

"Any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention facilities is FALSE,” DHS wrote in response to questions for this story, citing an unnamed spokesperson. “All detainees are provided with proper meals, quality water, blankets, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers. ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”

But Democratic Congress members from Texas who have visited the facilities said that what they’ve seen inside disturbs them. Castro and the delegation’s other most frequent guest at ICE lockups, El Paso Rep. Veronica Escobar, both have recounted cases of medical neglect and immigrants telling them they were being given substandard food. They each described dealings with federal officials who they said have been opaque about how the detention centers are run and unwilling to hold contracted facility operators accountable.

Escobar has visited Camp East Montana — a sprawling tent complex located on Fort Bliss in her district — ten times since it opened a year ago. The facility now holds more immigrants day to day than any other in the country, and it has violated dozens of federal detention standards, according to findings from a federal inspection published earlier this year. A separate federal report in June found that the facility had “serious gaps in medical services,” a reality Escobar said she witnessed firsthand through a mix of physical and mental toil.

In one case, she recalled speaking to a detainee who described constant pain in his forearm after being injured during his arrest in the Minneapolis area. Escobar said she met the man after he had been in custody for weeks, and he told her that despite begging for medical attention, he was given only aspirin and an arm brace.

“I asked if I could see his arm,” she said. “He took off his brace. You could see the break — his arm had never been set. It had never been put in a cast.”

Asked about Escobar’s retelling, DHS said the detainee in question was arrested shortly after Christmas in Minnesota.

The man “claimed to have a fractured wrist from a prior incident,” DHS said in its email to the Tribune, in which the agency confirmed he was “prescribed pain medication while in ICE custody” and did not mention further medical care.

“An immigration judge issued him a final order of removal on February 10,” DHS’ email continued. “On February 21, ICE was forced to release this illegal alien after a Biden-appointed activist judge ordered his release. ICE will continue to fight for his arrest and removal from the United States.”

Facility conditions

ICE officials have also pushed back on other allegations of poor conditions, maintaining that detainees receive three dietician-evaluated meals per day along with clean water, clothing and bedding. In its emailed response for this story, the agency also said it was “longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” contending the facilities provide better medical care than what many immigrants had received outside the lockups.

Both Castro and Escobar have spent months relaying stories from detainees, and other information they have gleaned, that they say paints the opposite picture. Each said they have heard from immigrants in custody who were treated solely with aspirin for medical problems that demanded more serious care.

“The medical care is probably the biggest complaint and worry, because every time we go visit, there will be people who will come up and say, ‘I’m supposed be taking [some] medication, and I haven’t gotten it on time’ or ‘I haven’t been able to take it when I’m supposed to,’” Castro said. “At Dilley, there was a teenager who got appendicitis and wasn’t seen for hours. So, medical care is often delayed or denied.”

In its emailed response, DHS said allegations about subpar conditions at Dilley are a “hoax” and blasted the Tribune for reporting them.

“The media is clearly desperate for these allegations of inhumane conditions at this facility to be true,” the agency wrote. “Here are the facts: Dilley does meet federal detention standards and actually undergoes regular audits and inspections.”

Castro has called for Dilley to be shut down, while Escobar has demanded the same of Camp East Montana, the respective facilities each has visited most frequently.

“I see my role as making sure we're fulfilling our obligation, that we are treating people humanely and that taxpayer dollars are not being wasted — that they're being used efficiently,” Escobar said. “But as I've seen, the folks on the ground really don't care, and it's gotten worse over time.”

Escobar’s perch on the House committee in charge of government spending gives her a say in how ICE spends its money, while Castro is the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Western Hemisphere panel, which has jurisdiction over U.S. policy toward Latin America. Both represent immigrant-heavy communities and have long been outspoken critics of Trump’s immigration policy, dating back to his first term.

The two Democrats each said it’s been tougher to get information during Trump’s second stint, with some facilities making it easier than others to secure access and information. And with Democrats in the minority, the two can’t compel witness testimony or launch special investigations.

“It’s much more secretive now,” Castro said. “ICE and the administration don’t feel like they have to explain themselves, oftentimes even to members of Congress with oversight authority.”

ICE detains immigrants at over 150 facilities around the country, ranging from county jails to processing centers to sprawling detention complexes.

Texas is home to 26 of these locations, by far the most of any state. Its detainee population — 16,450 as of early July, according to DHS data — is also the largest. About 24 percent have at least one criminal conviction.

New leadership, new rules

Both Castro and Escobar said they contend with decisions about when to work behind the scenes and when to use their platforms to publicly apply pressure, depending on the information or policy change they’re seeking.

Castro said he’s worked on cases that never made it onto his social media channels, sometimes after consultations with detainees’ lawyers and ICE officials made it clear that he would be most helpful by backing off.

Escobar said her strategy revolves around relaying the conditions detainees are facing — both to the public and behind closed doors.

“I have tried to influence the people on the ground, by pointing out to them — both the contractors and the ICE personnel — look what's happening,” she said. “This person has not gotten their insulin in weeks. Look at these shampoo packets — they're using them to wash their clothes because nobody's laundering their clothes. Or look at this group of women [who have] been in detention for three weeks without a phone call to their lawyers.”

Castro also said federal authorities have become more tight-lipped in recent months, after former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was ousted and Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the new agency head. The congressman said his access to detainees has also been curtailed under the new leadership.

Previously, if a member of Congress had a preplanned visit, facility staff would post a sign-up sheet for detainees wanting to meet with the member. When Castro visited, there were sometimes up to 300 people that had signed up to speak with him. Now, he said he has to submit a form to speak to specific detainees ahead of time.

ICE laid out those changes in a May memo, saying they were needed because members’ visits had become increasingly disruptive and resource-intensive.

The DHS spokesperson underscored that the high frequency of member visits had taken a toll, while noting that any member of Congress can still request to speak with a detainee in ICE custody. Agency officials facilitate those meetings when both parties agree to it, the spokesperson said.

“In Fiscal Year 2025, we supported more congressional facility visits than any year under the Biden-Harris administration,” the spokesperson added. “These requests must be part of legitimate congressional oversight activities, and far too often they are just for a media act. Without proper support, such visits threaten the safety of ICE personnel, the detainees, and Members of Congress alike.”

Democratic members could gain more oversight powers if Democrats win a majority in November’s midterms. Flipping the chamber would mean control of committee gavels, with the power to host hearings, set the agenda and compel administration officials to testify. That could also mean formal probes of detainees’ treatment in custody and how contracts were awarded to run detention facilities.

If his party flips the chamber, Castro said he wants to see a special commission to investigate ICE, including deaths in custody and at the hands of agents. He also wants to see legislation overhauling ICE, though any such changes would likely run into Trump’s veto pen if they ever made it that far.

“I don’t think that, for the sake of the country, ICE, as it exists today, can continue years into the future,” Castro said. “It simply has become too abusive, too lawless, too bloated.”

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.