"Let Us Out": ICE's Detention of Children Sparks Protests at TX Immigration Jail

[Uncle Joe]

Liam Ramos, the 5-year-old from Minnesota who was detained last week after coming home from preschool, is being held in the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Congressmembers who visited Liam report that has been depressed and hasn't been eating well. Javier Hidalgo, legal director at RAICES, has worked with families at the detention center for years. "We often hear about food with bugs or worms in it, half-frozen food being given, guards yelling at parents if their kids are making too much noise or they're asking for an extra apple," says Hidalgo. "Reform is inadequate. It just needs to be shut down."

When attorney Eric Lee visited the detention center, he observed immigrant families holding a protest to demand the release of immigrant children. "The Democratic Party is as equally responsible as Trump for creating the infrastructure of mass family and adult detention in this country, and it is necessary that this protest movement stay a hundred miles away from the Democratic Party and develop its orientation to the working class," says Lee, whose clients have been detained at the ICE jail since June.