Democrats Want to Close the Only Family Detention Center While the Border Burns

More than 110 Democratic members of Congress just signed a letter demanding the closure of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas. You know what makes this timing particularly rich? The facility is working exactly as intended, which is precisely why they want it shut down.

Led by Rep. Joaquin Castro, these lawmakers sent their plea to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, calling Dilley “nothing more than a trailer prison” that detains families who haven’t been charged with crimes. Well, here’s the thing they conveniently ignore. These families aren’t being detained for crimes in the traditional sense. They’re being held because they crossed our border illegally, which is itself a violation of federal law. The letter’s framing strips away this context entirely, painting detained families as innocent bystanders caught in some bureaucratic nightmare rather than people who made a calculated choice to enter our country unlawfully.

The Biden administration closed Dilley during its tenure, and we all watched what happened next. The border became a revolving door. Catch and release became the de facto policy, and millions of illegal immigrants flooded into communities across America with nothing more than a court date they’d likely never show up for. The Trump administration reopened Dilley last year as part of a broader effort to restore actual consequences to illegal border crossings. And honestly, that’s what this fight is really about.

The Democrats’ letter catalogs alleged horrors at the facility. Food contaminated with worms and mold. Water that makes people sick. Lights that never turn off. Inadequate medical care leading to depression and suicidal thoughts in children. These are serious allegations that deserve investigation. Nobody, conservative or otherwise, wants children suffering in government custody. But we’ve heard these stories before, haven’t we? Every time immigration enforcement gets serious, suddenly every detention facility becomes a chamber of horrors in the telling.

The letter describes a young boy who supposedly went days with severe stomach pain before finally being taken to a hospital where doctors diagnosed appendicitis. That’s concerning if true. But Dr. Sean Conley, the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Homeland Security, flatly disputes these characterizations. He calls allegations of denied medical care “FALSE” and insists that policy and practice require timely, appropriate medical attention from the moment people enter ICE custody. Someone’s not telling the whole truth here.

Here’s what gets lost in all the emotional appeals about children in detention. The presence of children is often precisely why families attempt illegal entry in the first place. For years, our broken system created an incentive structure where bringing a child virtually guaranteed release into the interior. Cartels and smugglers knew this. They exploited it ruthlessly. Some of these kids aren’t even with their real parents. The only way to break that cycle is through consistent detention and rapid deportation.

Is family detention ideal? Of course not. Nobody wakes up hoping to detain families. But what’s the alternative that doesn’t involve completely abandoning border security? The progressive answer seems to be catch and release with maybe some ankle monitors thrown in for show. We tried that. It failed spectacularly. Most people simply disappear into the country and never show up for their hearings.

The letter mentions immigrant advocates and medical professionals raising concerns about Dilley’s conditions. ABC News interviewed a couple whose one year old allegedly contracted COVID and RSV during a 60 day detention. That’s terrible for any parent to experience. But children get sick. They get sick in their own homes, in daycares, in schools. The question isn’t whether illnesses occur at Dilley but whether the facility is providing reasonable medical care when they do. And on that question, we have the word of activists versus the word of the government’s top medical official.

Castro and his colleagues want Dilley closed because it represents something they fundamentally oppose, which is meaningful immigration enforcement. They’ve dressed up their opposition in humanitarian language, but strip that away and you’re left with the same open borders philosophy that’s animated the Democratic Party for years now. If you can’t detain families and you can’t separate them, then you effectively can’t enforce immigration law against anyone who brings a child. That’s not a loophole. That’s a policy choice disguised as compassion.

The reality is that every sovereign nation controls its borders. Every functional immigration system includes detention as a component. And every serious effort at enforcement will face fierce resistance from those who view borders themselves as inherently unjust. Dilley will stay open because it needs to stay open, not because anyone enjoys the optics but because the alternative is chaos we’ve already lived through.

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