18 month old baby held by parents South Texas Immigration Detention Center She became ill last month and was rushed to a hospital with life-threatening respiratory failure, but was sent back to jail days later, where she was denied daily medication prescribed by her doctor, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday.
The toddler, Amalia, remained in custody for another nine days and was only released after her lawyers filed an emergency habeas petition in federal court challenging her continued confinement. She was released Friday after being charged.
Amalia was in good health until immigration officials arrested her family in El Paso in December and transferred them to the Dilley Immigration Detention Center, a remote prison-like facility where hundreds of immigrant children are held with their parents. Advocates and pediatric experts have warned that conditions at the center are unsafe for young children.
According to the complaint, Amalia’s health rapidly deteriorated. On January 18, she was rushed to Children’s Hospital in San Antonio, where doctors treated her for pneumonia, COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, and severe breathing difficulties.
“She was on the brink of death,” said Elora Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia University Law School and director of the school’s Immigrant Rights Clinic, who filed the petition seeking the family’s release.
But after Amalia returned to Dilley on Jan. 28, federal authorities “denied her access to medication prescribed by her doctor at the hospital,” forcing her parents to “stand in long lines outside for hours each day” to get medication, only to be turned away, the suit says.
After several days of intensive treatment with oxygen, Amalia began to recover. But her discharge from the hospital wasn’t the end of her ordeal.
Immigration officials returned Amalia and her mother to detention despite warnings from medical experts that the infant remained medically fragile and at high risk of reinfection, the suit said.
“After baby Amalia was hospitalized for 10 days, ICE felt it was time to return her to Dilley, where she was denied access to the medication that the hospital’s doctors told her she needed,” Mukherjee said. “That’s so outrageous.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. The government has defended its use of family detention, saying in statements and legal submissions that detainees are provided with basic necessities and that authorities strive to ensure the safety of children and adults.
CoreCivic, the company that operates Dilly under a federal contract, deferred questions about the facility to DHS and said in a statement that “the health and safety of the people entrusted to our care” is its top priority.
Amalia’s case comes amid intense scrutiny of conditions in Dilley, which attracted national attention last month after being raided by immigration authorities. Liam Conejo Ramos arresteda 5-year-old boy was taken into custody along with his father. The episode sparked widespread outrage after a photo was published of a child wearing a blue bunny hat being led away by police.
account from Detained families, their attorneys, and court filings Dilly has been portrayed as a place of suffering for hundreds of children who are served contaminated food, have little access to education and struggle to access basic health care. declaration of oath from dozens of parents As the federal government expands its use of family detention, it argues that long-term confinement takes a heavy physical and psychological toll on children, including regression, weight loss, recurring illnesses and nightmares.
Lawyers for Amalia’s parents, like many other families detained in Diri, argue that they should never have been detained.
The complaint alleges that Kaylin Valero Marcano and Steven Arrieta Prieto entered the United States in 2024 after fleeing Venezuela, where they faced persecution for their political opposition to President Nicolas Maduro. During her journey north, Valero Marcano gave birth to Amalia in Mexico.
They applied for asylum through the government-run reservations system CBP One, and immigration officials allowed the family to live in El Paso while the case progressed. They were in regular contact with immigration officials and complied with all requirements, including participation in the Alternative to Detention Monitoring Program, according to the complaint.
The situation changed on Dec. 11 when the family turned themselves in together for check-in and were taken into custody, according to the complaint. Two days later, they were transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, a vast complex an hour south of San Antonio and more than 800 miles from their previous communities.
Once in Dilly, her parents said their daughter’s health rapidly deteriorated. In early January, Amalia developed a high fever that wouldn’t stop. She started vomiting, had diarrhea, and had trouble breathing.
As her decline progressed, her parents repeatedly took her to the facility’s clinic for help (eight or nine times, according to the complaint). Each visit ended the same way, according to the complaint. In other words, it’s a basic fever medicine.
By mid-January, Amalia was barely able to get enough oxygen. On Jan. 18, her blood oxygen levels plummeted into the 50s, causing a life-threatening emergency that sent her and her mother from the facility to the hospital, according to the complaint. Her father remained in Dilley, unable to contact or see his wife while doctors tried to save his daughter.
She spent 10 days at Methodist Children’s Hospital in San Antonio, much of the time on oxygen as her lungs struggled to recover. According to the complaint, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continued to monitor Amalia and her mother throughout her hospital stay.
Mukherjee said the girl’s mother feared her daughter would die and spent her days praying by her bedside, but was later shocked to learn that she would be sent to jail again after being discharged from the hospital.
Medical records cited in the lawsuit show that Amalia’s doctors gave her clear instructions when she was discharged from the hospital on January 28. He needed nebulized breathing therapy and nutritional supplements to regain his strength and weight.
Instead of allowing Amalia to return to El Paso, immigration officials sent Amalia and her mother back to Dilley, according to the complaint.
Medical staff in custody confiscated Amalia’s nebulizer, albuterol and nutritional supplements. Parents were required to wait for hours each day in what detainees described in interviews and affidavits as “medication lines.” This requires families to stand in line outside to get medicine and other necessities.
Mukherjee said Amalia shivered in her mother’s arms as she waited in the cold, but was eventually given Pediasure and refused respiratory medication prescribed by her doctor.
As Amalia remains in detention, Mukherjee and other immigration lawyers repeatedly urged federal authorities to release the family, warning that the child’s condition could deteriorate rapidly.
Medical experts who reviewed Amalia’s records filed an affidavit warning that returning a medically fragile infant to detention, especially without reliable access to prescription medication, puts her at extreme risk. One doctor warned that the child faced “high risk of medical decompensation and death.”
Mukherjee’s efforts intensify at the request of health authorities Two people infected with measles confirmed Among those detained in Dilley.
When those appeals failed, Mukherjee filed an emergency challenge in federal court seeking the release of his family.
The family was released several hours later on Friday evening. Mukherjee said ICE did not turn over Amalia’s birth certificate as well as her prescriptions. Parents were not immediately available for interviews.
Mukherjee said the reprieve brought them a sense of relief, but he expected the experience to have a lasting impact.
“I think they will carry the trauma of this experience with them for the rest of their lives,” she says.