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Measles Outbreak at ICE Center Holding 400 Kids Called 'Predictable Outcome' of Trump Policies
One doctor warned that the outbreak "will become an epidemic if we don't act immediately."
Feb 02, 2026
Public health experts and immigrant advocates sounded the alarm Sunday over a measles outbreak at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement internment center in Texas where roughly 1,200 people, including over 400 children, are being held.
Texas officials confirmed Saturday that two detainees at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, located about 75 miles (120 km) southwest of San Antonio, are infected with measles.
"Medical staff is continuing to monitor the detainees' conditions and will take appropriate and active steps to prevent further infection," the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement. "All detainees are being provided with proper medical care."
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Sunday that ICE "immediately took steps to quarantine and control further spread and infection, ceasing all movement within the facility and quarantining all individuals suspected of making contact with the infected."
Responding to the development, Dr. Lee Rogers of UT Health San Antonio wrote in a letter to Texas state health officials that the Dilley outbreak "will become an epidemic if we don't act immediately" by establishing "a single public health incident command center."
"Viruses are not political," Rogers stressed. "They do not care about one's immigration status. Measles will spread if we allow uncertainty and delay to substitute for reasoned public health action."
Dr. Benjamin Mateus took aim at the Trump administration's wider policy of "criminalizing immigrant families and confining children in camps," which he called a form of "colonial policy" from which disease is the "predictable outcome."
Measles is a highly contagious viral disease that can kill or cause serious complications, particularly among unvaccinated people. The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000, but declining vaccination fueled by misinformation has driven a resurgence in the disease, and public health experts warn that the US is close to following Canada, which lost its elimination status late last year.
Many experts blame this deadly and preventable setback on the vaccine-averse policies and practices of the Trump administration, particularly at the Department of Health and Human Services, led by vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
US measles cases this year already exceed the total for the whole of 2023 and 2024 combined, and it is only January. Yikes.
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— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran.com) January 29, 2026 at 12:29 PM
Critics also slammed ICE's recent halt on payments to third-party providers of detainee healthcare services.
Immigrant advocates had previously warned of a potential measles outbreak at the Dilley lockup. Neha Desai, an attorney at the Oakland, California-based National Center of Youth Law, told CBS News that authorities could use the outbreak as a pretext for preventing lawyers and lawmakers from inspecting the facility.
"We are deeply concerned for the physical and the mental health of every family detained at Dilley," Desai said. "It is important to remember that no family needs to be detained—this is a choice that the administration is making."
Run by ICE and private prison profiteer CoreCivic, the Dilley Immigration Processing Center has been plagued by reports of poor health and hygiene conditions. The facility is accused of providing inadequate medical care for children.
Detainees—who include people legally seeking asylum in the US—report prison-like conditions and say they've been served moldy food infested with worms and forced to drink putrid water. Some have described the facility as "truly a living hell."
The internment center has made headlines not only for its harsh conditions, but also for its high-profile detainees, including Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old abducted by ICE agents in Minneapolis last month and held along with his father at the facility before a judge ordered their release last week. The child's health deteriorated while he was at Dilley.
On Sunday, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)—the nation's oldest Latino civil rights organization—held a protest outside the Dilley lockup, demanding its closure.
"Migrant detention centers in America are a moral failure,” LULAC national president Roman Palomares said in a statement. "When a nation that calls itself a beacon of freedom detains children behind razor wire, separates families from their communities, and holds them in isolated conditions, we have crossed a dangerous line."
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'Endless Monster Behavior From ICE': Family Arrested While Rushing Child to Oregon ER
Parents who are legally applying for US asylum were prevented from getting emergency medical care for their 7-year-old daughter.
Jan 23, 2026
Advocates sounded the alarm Friday over federal agents' arrest last week of a family of legal asylum-seekers apprehended just outside a Portland, Oregon hospital where they had rushed their 7-year-old daughter for emergency medical treatment.
Yohendry De Jesus Crespo and his wife Darianny Liseth González de Crespo—Venezuelans with pending asylum claims living in Gresham, Oregon—were rushing their daughter Diana to Adventist Hospital in Portland on January 16 as the child suffered an unstoppable nosebleed.
According to the Oregonian, Diana never got to see a doctor, as three unmarked vehicles and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded their family car in the emergency room parking lot.
"The parents pleaded to let their 7-year-old daughter... be released so she could receive urgently needed medical care, but that request was denied," Oregon state Rep. Ricki Ruiz (D-50) said on Facebook.
Absolutely endless monster behavior from ICE & CBP. Detaining parents seeking urgent healthcare for their kids and who, in this case, had petitioned for asylum. All at the same hospital where they shot two people earlier this month.www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...
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— Aubrey Gordon (@yrfatfriend.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 9:18 AM
Friend Ana Linares said the family was arrested, driven to a facility in Tacoma, Washington, and then sent to Texas, where they are being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center near San Antonio.
The facility, which is run by ICE and private prison profiteer CoreCivic, is accused of providing inadequate medical care for children, as well as poor sanitary and health conditions. Detainees also report being served moldy or worm-infested food.
Ruiz said the child "remains ill, reportedly suffering from a fever, and has not received basic medical care."
The family's arrest—which took place less than 1,000 feet from where a US Border Patrol agent shot a Venezuelan couple earlier this month—appears to be the first time in Oregon that immigration enforcers have detained an entire family unit.
Heather Pease, a spokesperson for Adventist Hospital, told the Oregonian that “no law enforcement agency contacted us" about arresting the family, "and we did not coordinate with any agency."
“Adventist Health Portland is here for our community, open, available, and ready to provide care when it’s needed most," Pease added. "Patient care remains our priority, regardless of circumstances.”
It is unclear why the family was arrested. Neither parent has any known criminal record. Linares said the couple—who met in the Panamanian jungle while making their way to the United States—waited to enter the US legally and applied for an appointment. They were assigned a 2028 immigration court date to plead their asylum cases.
“They are good people, not criminals,” Linares told the Oregonian. “They were looking for stability. They wanted to help their families in Venezuela.”
The Trump administration's deadly mass deportation blitz has targeted children—among them US citizens, including a 3-year-old cancer patient—for detention and deportation.
As Common Dreams reported Thursday, federal agents seized at least four children from Minnesota public schools over the past two weeks, including a 5-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, who were sent to the Dilley lockup.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, a record 73,000 people facing deportation are currently being jailed by ICE, including 6,000 family units.
Some of the nearly 5,000 children who were separated from their parents or other relatives during Trump's first term have also yet to be reunited with their families.
Child welfare advocates worry that Trump administration pressure to increase arrests and the commodification of migrants by for-profit prisons and other private profiteers is incentivizing the arrest and detention of immigrants, including children.
Asserting that "the immediate health and well-being" of Diana Crespo "must be the top priority," Ruiz said on Facebook, "We urgently call for the child to receive appropriate medical care without delay and for the family to be afforded due process and access to legal counsel."
"Situations involving children require heightened care, compassion, and coordination," he added, "and we expect all responsible agencies to act swiftly and humanely to ensure this child's health and safety are protected."
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Standing Witness to ICE’s Cruelty Is Peaceful Protesting Done Right
If we want to preserve our democracy, then none of us have the luxury of averting our eyes to the Trump administration’s injustices. No matter how grueling it may be, we must grit our teeth, bear witness, and fight.
Jan 01, 2026
Throughout 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been abducting people across the United States. This includes people like Rümeysa Öztürk who was arrested by six plainclothes officers as she left her home. It includes Frank Miranda, a US citizen, who was detained by plainclothes officers outside his Portland workplace and detained for hours. It includes Patricia Quishpe who was arrested by Border Patrol agents as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz.
These abductions are being fueled by multiple factors, including the Trump administration’s disregard for due process, their indifference to the safety of people of color, as well as ICE’s hired private sector bounty hunters. To date, ICE has hired 10 contractors with ties to spy agencies and the military-industrial complex to track and surveil suspected migrants. They have also partnered with private prison companies like Geo Group and CoreCivic. Currently, nearly 90% of all people in ICE custody are held in for-profit facilities. These multimillion-dollar contracts have been made possible by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act which allocated $170 billion to ICE for border and interior enforcement.
These partnerships and resources have allowed ICE to effectively create a secret police force that kidnaps people off the street, detains them in private prisons, and prevents lawmakers from exercising any oversight. ICE has become the Gestapo.
While this threat is real and growing, people are resisting ICE’s fascist tactics. This includes the work being done by groups like “Witness at the Border,” an advocacy group that has been monitoring and reporting ICE activities since 2018. Their work includes talking to people coming in and out of detention centers, tracking buses and flights carrying detainees, as well as traveling to the US-Mexico border to witness the dire conditions migrants face there. They have held in-person and online seminars to inform the public about what they have seen and learned, as well as lobbied state legislatures and Congress to hold ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accountable for their abuses.
We cannot trust the Trump administration to be transparent with the American public. If DHS is becoming a secret police force, then it is up to us to bring their abuses to light. We must all bear witness to their cruelty.
These “witnesses” provide civilian oversight over ICE abuses. As Lee Goodman, one of the activists describes it: “Our process basically is to do what we can to see, to listen, to hear, to talk to people who know and to get the word. We don’t want [ICE] to ever think they can do what they want without being observed.” Goodman has been part of witnessing efforts at detention centers in Tornillo, Texas and Homestead, Florida—both of which have since shut down.
Advocates for Witness at the Border are currently witnessing outside several detention centers, including the North Lake Processing Center in Michigan and the Broadview ICE Facility in Illinois. These efforts are incredibly important. From the start of Trump’s mass deportation campaign, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has worked to restrict congressional oversight. State representatives in Illinois, for instance, had been denied entry into the Broadview facility for months until a federal judge intervened in mid-December. This, despite numerous allegations of human rights abuses occurring at the Broadview ICE Facility, including denying detainees food and medical care as well as forcing them to sleep on concrete floors amid “urine and dirty water.”
We cannot trust the Trump administration to be transparent with the American public. If DHS is becoming a secret police force, then it is up to us to bring their abuses to light. We must all bear witness to their cruelty.
Fortunately, many are seeing the value of witnessing as a form of peaceful protest. Individuals, like Job Garcia and Carlitos Ricardo Parias, have recorded ICE’s cruelty and shared those videos on social media. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta have announced a new online portal to share information about unlawful activity by federal agents and officers across the state. As Gov. Newson puts it: “This new portal gives Californians an easy and safe way to speak up, share what they see, and help us hold people accountable. No one is above the law.”
DHS wants nothing more than to commit their illicit activities unseen. They fear witnesses and will resort to violence to stop them.
Beyond drawing attention to the problem, witnessing has several praiseworthy features.
First, and perhaps most obviously, witnesses document abuse. This is not only important for calling out ICE’s actions today, but for holding the people committing these abuses—including Secretary Noem and members of the Trump administration—criminally accountable in the future. When their day in court comes, we must ensure that the evidence against them is resounding. We must bear witness today to ensure justice tomorrow.
Second, witnesses empower and protect victims. DHS continues to deny any wrongdoing. Secretary Noem has even insisted, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that, “there’s no American citizens that have been arrested or detained.” Yet, videos of ICE agents doing precisely this prove that she is lying. These videos validate the experiences of US citizens who have been assaulted by ICE agents. It provides them the leverage to speak out against an administration that wants nothing more than to discredit and silence them.
Third, witnessing provides a fuller picture. From the outside, it’s easy to think that everyone working at ICE facilities is simply evil or, at best, morally indifference. However, Majorie Ziefert, an activist working with Witness at the Border, reports that the reality on the ground is quite different. She has spoken with staff at processing centers who express hating what is happening to detainees at those facilities. They only continue to work there because they need the income. While we may still condemn those people for their part in ICE’s cruelty, witnessing draws attention to how capitalism pressures people to contribute to unjust systems. At the same time, it helps bridge inroads that may lead to unlikely alliances.
Fourth, to witness is to take a risk. ICE agents have attacked and detained people like Barbara Stone, a volunteer with the group Detention Resistance that observes and documents immigration court proceedings. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin has claimed that “videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents. We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.” This response by DHS highlights the value of witnessing as a form of protest. DHS wants nothing more than to commit their illicit activities unseen. They fear witnesses and will resort to violence to stop them.
Witnessing is risky, but facing this risk may help us cultivate the kinds of virtues—courage, selflessness, justice, perseverance, and empathy—that make people into good activists. The reality is that the Trump administration is far from over. The situation will likely get far worse, especially as DHS invests in more invasive surveillance technologies. We will all need to become more resilient to combat what comes next.
Fifth, like any form of protest, witnessing will be more impactful when done alongside others. But whether it’s at a detention center or on the street, whether it’s a testimony or recording a video, anyone can be a witness.
In 2025, the Trump administration deported more than 600,000 people while stripping 1.6 million immigrants of their legal status. In 2026, they seek to expand their efforts by denaturalizing 100 to 200 people per month. If we want to preserve our democracy, then none of us has the luxury of averting our eyes to the Trump administration’s injustices. No matter how grueling it may be, we must grit our teeth, bear witness, and fight.
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