Immigration attorney Eric Lee said he was at the Dilley facility for a confidential visit with clients — an immigrant family of six, including five children — when guards began shouting for everyone in the waiting area to leave, citing what they described as “an incident.”

As the Michigan-based attorney walked toward his car, he said he heard what sounded like “hundreds of children” shouting, with voices he described as “high-pitched” and “urgent.” He said he could see children streaming from dormitory areas behind a chain-link fence and chanting “Libertad."

Lee said clients he later spoke with told him the protest was triggered by concerns over the treatment of Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old who was taken into custody with his father in Minnesota earlier this week and transferred to the Dilley facility.

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Lee described Saturday’s action inside the facility as a peaceful demonstration, not a riot, and said the show of solidarity carried risk for detained families.

Lee said the protest unfolded against what he described as harsh day-to-day conditions inside the Dilley detention center. He characterized the facility as “a horrible, horrible place,” alleging that drinking water is “putrid” and often undrinkable, and that meals have contained “bugs,” dirt, and debris.

“The guards are just as tough as the guards at the adult facilities. This is not a place that you would want to have your child be for even 15 minutes,” Lee said.

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Texas Public Radio reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on the disturbance and on Lee’s allegations regarding Liam Ramos’ treatment but had not received a response by Saturday evening.

Bolding added, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260126023037/https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2026-01-24/protest-breaks-out-at-dilley-immigration-detention-facility-holding-5-year-old-liam-ramos