Protesters gathered in pouring rain Wednesday at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, located southwest from San Antonio, to speak out against conditions reported inside.
The group of roughly 10 people — mostly members of the local chapter of anti-Trump activist group 50501 — had driven almost an hour from San Antonio for the demonstration.
The gathering was an emergency action in response to a recent report by the Current about a flurry of 9-1-1 calls originating from inside the facility, which is operated by private prison company GEO Group and houses up to 1,900 men and women. Those with knowledge of the facility described harsh conditions inside, including extreme rationing and inadequate access to medical care.
Despite the downpour, the small group of demonstrators continued quietly, yet defiantly, holding signs on the grassy embankment across the street from the private detention center, as the authorities faced them down — a cold war on a dreary day.
Even the group of protestors was small and peaceful, staffers from the ICE Processing Center blocked all entrances and exits with cones, not allowing any traffic in or out.
A group of law enforcement officers and security guards, roughly equivalent in size to the number of protesters, stood between the demonstration and the lockup facility. Police cars lined the street in front of the complex, which is fortified by a barbed wire perimeter fence.
Even relatives who arrived to visit detained family members were turned away.
“They just told us because protesters are here and the media is here, they are not letting anyone in,” said Hayate Elmessoussi, who was there to visit her younger brother Bagrat, an immigrant from the Eastern European country of Georgia. Federal authorities picked up her brother June 20 in a routine check-in at San Antonio Immigration in a roundup she described as a “trap.”
“He was following all the instructions he was told to do,” Elmessoussi said.
Her brother has been in the United States for two years and relocated to Texas from New Jersey to continue his legal immigration proceedings, she added.
Elmessoussi said she wanted to see her brother before the Fourth of July holiday.
“We wanted to bring hope to them and that we love them and miss them and want them home,” she explained.
Since June 20, Elmessoussi and her family have been thrown into the maelstrom of navigating the United States’ rapidly expanding immigrant-detention system.
“It really is a nightmare,” she said. “We’ve spent thousands of dollars on consultation fees, and no one wants to take his case.”
Though officials at the Pearsall center told Elmessoussi that she couldn’t visit her brother because of the protest on the other side of the street, they didn’t explain why it posed a threat.
“Sometimes you cannot ask many questions, because that just indicates that you are defiant,” Elmessoussi said. “[The protestors] are just being peaceful and sitting down, so I don’t see the reason why we can’t visit our family members.”
Elmessoussi, who lives in San Antonio, said prison staff told her visitations were called off as long as the protesters remained, and he group planned to be there all day.
The Current asked center personnel why they had closed off visitations due to the small demonstration across the street but weren’t provided a reason.
“I can’t answer anything,” security guard Thomas Otti said, bracing against the rain. “I’m not supposed to talk.”
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This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 9, 2025.
