Only 100 people are currently detained in the federal government’s controversy-plagued family detention center at Dilley, nonprofit news outlet ProPublica reports. That compares to an average daily population of more than 900 in January.
The Current first reported on a sharp drop in the immigrant prison camp’s population on March 10, when U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, revealed at a press conference that the number had dwindled to 450 people, including 99 children. When Castro visited the site an hour southwest of San Antonio in January, its population was roughly 1,100.
Not only has the population in Dilley dropped, according to ProPublica, so has the rate at which people are being sent to the lockup.
Between April 2025, when President Donald Trump resumed sending families to the South Texas detention center, and this January, the number of people booked into the site averaged 600 monthly. As of mid-March, the number of monthly book-ins has dropped to just 54.
Castro has said he believes public pushback against the detention of children, combined with inmates’ reports of deplorable conditions inside, played a factor in the government reducing the population at Dilley.
“I believe that the public outcry is making a difference. That people are leaving Dilley. That more people are being released,” Castro said the press conference earlier this month at San Antonio City Hall, where he was joined by a delegation of U.S. House Democrats who accompanied him to Dilley.
However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, insisted in a statement to ProPublica that public pressure hasn’t played a role in the detention facility’s dwindling population.
Rather, DHS told ProPublica that decisions are made “daily, on a case-by-case basis,” adding that the “administration does not make immigration decisions based on public opinion. We follow the rule of law.”
CoreCivic, the private prison company operating the facility, told ProPublica in a statement it doesn’t have “any say whatsoever” in whether detainees are deported or released. However, the company said the health and safety of its detainees remains its “top priority.”
Nonetheless, reports from those detained inside depict unsanitary conditions, including “putrid” drinking water along with mold and bugs in the food. The Current also broke the story nationally of a measles outbreak at the camp on Feb. 1, thanks to a source familiar with conditions inside.
Dilley inmates also have reportedly been rushed to the hospital after staff there have been unable to provide the care they needed. A two-month old infant named Juan Nicolás choked on his own vomit until he became unresponsive and was rushed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with bronchitis. A teen boy was told to take pain relievers for life-threatening appendicitis until his conditioned worsened and he was hospitalized.
Even though the facility has been reopened for almost a year, staff told Castro’s congressional delegation in early March that the camp is just starting to offer an educational program with a single teacher on staff. Some of the children detained inside had been there for nine months at that point.
“I’ve said very clearly that my goal is to shut down Dilley. I don’t think anybody should be kept in that trailer prison, and most especially children,” Castro said at the press conference.
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