A caravan of more than 30 activists departed San Antonio Wednesday morning for an immigrant detention center in Dilley to demand the release of 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy Liam Conejo Ramos, who was detained in the Trump administration’s Minneapolis crackdown.
Some group members are carpooling to Dilley, located roughly an hour southwest of the Alamo City, while others boarded a bus carrying activists from Houston. A separate bus ferrying people from Dallas is also en route to the small South Texas town, organizer said.
The activists plan to meet up with others from across the state. The groups will jointly march to the South Texas Family Residential Center detention site, where Democratic U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and Jasmine Crockett of Dallas are due to inspect conditions at the facility.
The members of Congress are also expected to meet with Ramos and his father, who were picked up in Minneapolis by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last week, sparking a national outcry. Witnesses accused ICE agents of using the child as “bait” to get his parents to open their door and face arrest.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Antonio temporarily blocked the deportation of the father and son while legal challenges to the feds’ case play out.
“People who are on the edges of society, they’re always the ones that are victimized, and we’re horrified,” caravan organizer Rebecca Flores said of Ramos’ detainment and the recent events in Minneapolis. “I’m personally horrified, not only for Liam but for the hundreds of children [in the South Texas Residential Center.]
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, who was denied entry to the Dilley detention center last week, estimates that there are around 400 children in custody there.
Conditions inside the site — the only family detention center operating in the U.S. — have also grabbed national headlines since it reopened under the second Trump administration.
Court testimony filed by immigrant advocacy group RAICES in July reported that Dilley detainees face a lack of medical care, clean drinking water and adequate food, as reported by the Current. One detainee quoted in the legal filings said her 9-month-old son lost more than 9 pounds during the first month the family was held there.
Families incarcerated at Dilley also staged a boisterous protest over the weekend to draw attention to conditions there and demand Ramos’ release.
“The racism in this country — it’s just horrible how we separate ourselves and put people in a box,” said activist Pamela Osborne, who joined the Caravan to Dilley this morning. “I’m not separate from anybody else.
After their tour of the detention site, Castro and Crockett will travel back to San Antonio and join up with other Democratic lawmakers for a 4 p.m. press conference. A community rally against ICE at Progresso Hall, 1306 Guadalupe St. will follow at 6:30 p.m.
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