Since the intense ICE detentions and deportations began last year, we have heard many stories about the deplorable and terrifying conditions in which many detainees are being held. Many of them are reportedly not being fed properly, are being crammed into too small spaces, and don’t have even basic hygiene needs met. This creates a breeding ground for illness and in some cases can potentially lead to death. Dilley Detention Center in Texas has recently come under scrutiny, and it’s only going to get worse after a toddler nearly died there.
The little girl became incredibly sick because of the conditions. But when doctors and lawyers fought to have her family released, they were instead returned to their deplorable conditions.
Eighteen-month-old Amalia was healthy when she and her family were detained in El Paso in December, People reported. The family was then transferred to Dilley Immigration Processing Center, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the family on February 6, 2026, and obtained by the magazine.
Amalia’s health deteriorated quickly after the family arrived at the detention center. By January 1, 2026, she had developed a 104-degree fever that wouldn’t break. According to the lawsuit, she began vomiting, had diarrhea, and was struggling to breathe.
Despite going to the facility’s medical center multiple times, the family was only given basic fever medication, the lawsuit claimed.
The toddler was rushed to the hospital on January 18 with frighteningly low oxygen levels. Only her mother was allowed to accompany her to the hospital. While there, the toddler was diagnosed with and treated for pneumonia, COVID-19, viral bronchitis, RSV, and severe respiratory distress. She was put on supplemental oxygen.
“She was at the brink of dying,” Elora Mukherjee, Columbia Law School professor and director of the school’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic who filed the lawsuit for the family, told NBC News.
Despite medical experts warning that the toddler had nearly died and should not go back to Dilley because she was still medically vulnerable, immigration officers brought Amalia and her mother back to the detention center.
“After baby Amalia had been hospitalized for 10 days, ICE thought this baby should be returned to Dilley, where she was denied access to the medicines that the hospital doctors told her she needed,” Mukherjee said, per NBC News. “It is so outrageous.”
This is 18-mo-old Amalia waving to me when she was detained.
— Mica Rosenberg (@micarosenberg) February 9, 2026
She was hospitalized with a respiratory infection while at ICE’s Dilley facility for immigrant families.
She’s one of dozens of detainees who I spoke to via video and phone calls, letters and an in-person visit. 🧵1/ pic.twitter.com/vogHJt66Ql
Upon her release from the hospital, doctors prescribed the girl a nebulizer to deliver breathing treatments. She was also given nutritional supplements due to the weight she lost while severely sick.
When the girl and her mom got back to Dilley, her medications were confiscated, the lawsuit alleges. Her parents were denied the opportunity to give her the necessary breathing treatments, and she was only given PediaSure.
Mukherjee filed an emergency challenge in federal court to get the family released after the toddler nearly died. Hours later, the family was released. According to the lawyer, Amalia’s medications and birth certificate were not immediately returned to her parents.
“ICE should never have detained Baby Amalia,” Mukherjee said in a statement shared with People on February 8. “She and her parents did everything right — they entered the United States lawfully, they complied with all their immigration check-ins, they went to church every week and contributed to their community. ICE abruptly arrested and detained the family in December. In January, Baby Amalia nearly died at Dilley.”
She continued in the statement, sharing, “The American Academy of Pediatrics and every major medical association has condemned family detention because of its harmful physical and psychological effects on children, which persist even after children are released from detention.”
