Rep. Joaquin Castro calls for release of migrant family held at ICE facility south of San Antonio

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro is calling for the release of a migrant family from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility an hour southwest of San Antonio, warning the incarceration has major health risks for one of their children.

The family, who were seeking asylum in Washington state before being detained during an immigration court hearing, have a 6-year-old son with a life-threatening kidney disease. They’re being held at the recently reopened South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, a facility that made headlines during the first Trump administration for lack of medical care that may have resulted in the preventible deaths of infants. “The United States of America became the most powerful, prosperous and influential nation on Earth not in spite of immigrants but because of immigrants,” Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, said during a rally on Sunday. “Over the generations, this country gave people a chance to build a better life for themselves and their families. That was the story of my grandmother Victoria Castro … and that is the story of so many families over the years, including the story of Nicolle, her husband and two kids.”

The protest on the steps of San Antonio City Hall was organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is traveling across the Southwest this week to raise awareness about the plight of union member Nicolle Orozco Forero and her family.

“This is what injustice looks like,” SEIU political coordinator Ivory Watts said. “A family following the law, contributing to their community, building a business to serve local families, torn apart and detained thousands of miles away from their home while their little boy’s health hangs in the balance.”

Forero worked as a childcare provider and caretaker while attending college in Auburn, Washington, according to a GoFundMe set up to help raise money for legal fees. She and her husband has also recently opened their own licensed home childcare program to help the community’s growing need.

Forero’s son Juan was receiving medical treatment for a serious kidney condition at Seattle Children’s Hospital at the time he was detained. Organizers of Sunday’s rally say that the child’s treatment has since stopped.

Forero, her husband Sebastian and her two children are all being held at the Dilley lockup, roughly 80 miles Southwest of San Antonio. However, Sebastian is being segregated from the rest of the family in another part of the facility.

The Biden administration closed down the South Texas Family Residential Center, but the site reopened in March after a private prison corporation, CoreCivic, struck a deal with Dilley city officials and ICE, the Texas Tribune reports.

The facility grabbed headlines during the first Trump administration for its reportedly inhumane conditions. Texas officials investigated the site in 2018 for possible abuse and neglect after a migrant child died shortly after leaving custody there.

“We’ve been told for a few years that violent individuals would be targeted,” Castro said of the Trump White House’s immigration crackdown. “That bad people would be targeted. These were lies. We see what’s going on. We see the videos of mothers being torn from their kids. Crying in anguish, pain and fear. We hear the stories of families in detention sleeping on concrete and treated like animals.”

Castro and the SEIU’s call for the release of the Forero family comes amid a rise in 9-1-1 emergency calls from the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, also located around an hour from San Antonio.

A protest against the reported inhumane treatment of migrants organized by the anti-Trump activist group 50501 is set to take place from 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 2, at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, 566 Veterans Drive.

Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed

This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 9, 2025.