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Members of Congress said Tuesday that more than 500 people were being held at the South Texas facility, including 112 children, as they renewed their months-long push to close it.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio said 96 children were being held at Dilley during a congressional visit in May. He and other lawmakers also raised concerns about detainees' access to legal information.
Tuesday's visit came less than two weeks after Castro led 110 other House Democrats in a letter urging the Department of Homeland Security to close Dilley and end family detention nationwide.
Castro was joined by members of the Congressional Democratic Women's Caucus, advocates from FWD.us and Families Belong Together, and pediatric critical care physician Dr. Anita Patel. The delegation held a news conference in San Antonio after the tour.
Castro said Tuesday marked his seventh visit to Dilley. He criticized the federal government's use of CoreCivic, a private prison company, to operate the center under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"We have commodified child imprisonment in our nation," Castro said. "CoreCivic is a private prison company whose investors include some of the largest asset managers in this country. They are making money. The more kids that are put in Dilley."
Castro attributed the reported increase in detainees to intensified ICE enforcement over the past month.
"I believe that is the result of the ICE surge that we've seen over the last month or so," Castro said. "We've seen families that have been torn apart on the street and brutality on the street. The result of that is that more families and more children are now imprisoned at Dilley."
Castro also questioned how detainees were being informed about their rights under the Flores Settlement Agreement, which establishes standards for the treatment and release of immigrant children in federal custody.
He said facility officials directed lawmakers to a digital screen in the intake area that was intended to display information about the agreement. During the delegation's visit, Castro said, the screen repeatedly displayed information in a language the detainees they spoke with did not understand.
Castro said one woman told the delegation she had waited in the intake area for nine hours without seeing the language change.
The Flores agreement, first reached in 1997, requires federal authorities to hold children in safe and sanitary conditions, place them in the least restrictive setting appropriate to their age and needs and release them without unnecessary delay to a parent, relative or other suitable sponsor.
"This is a system that is corrupt, that is duplicitous, that is reckless," Castro said. "And this detention center should absolutely be shut down."
Dilley opened as a family detention facility in 2014. CoreCivic stopped operating it in August 2024 after ICE ended funding but resumed operations in March 2025 under an amended agreement involving ICE, the City of Dilley and CoreCivic. The facility can hold as many as 2,400 people, and the agreement runs through March 2030.
Members of the delegation on Tuesday described what they said was the psychological toll of detention on children and their parents.
Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley said families had been taken into custody while going about their daily lives.
"So it seems their only crime is that they exist," Pressley said. "These are law-abiding people that are our neighbors who were just going about their lives and met with such an aggressive disruption that they will be recovering from for the rest of their lives."
Patel, the pediatric critical care physician who joined the delegation, cited the cases of children previously held in immigration detention who she said continued to show signs of trauma.
"Children like Liam Ramos, who is exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress to this day," Patel said. "Five-year-old Alexander, who was found in his cell with his mother's pants cord wrapped around his neck because he did not want to be in detention anymore."
ICE and CoreCivic have previously disputed allegations of mistreatment at Dilley, saying the facility complies with federal detention standards and offers medical care, schooling, recreation and other services.
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