The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is once again tightening rules at Dilley’s South Texas Family Residential Center after viral video calls from detainees have gained national attention.
In the viral videos shared by journalists and public figures such as kids’ YouTuber Ms. Rachel, detained children talked about the conditions inside the immigration detention facility about an hour southwest of San Antonio.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” a 9-year-old boy detained at Dilley said in an Instagram reel posted five days ago by Ms. Rachel, who has 5 million followers on Instagram and 19.2 million subscribers on her YouTube channel.
“Video conferencing will no longer be available in community areas following the live streaming of video calls online that resulted in the unauthorized dissemination of law enforcement sensitive information,” a spokesperson with DHS told the Houston-based online news site Chron in a Wednesday afternoon statement.
The agency alleged the live streams “undermined the security of the facility and [that] false reporting of emergencies […] diverted law enforcement resources.”
However, video conferencing will still be available in private rooms at the Dilley detention center, Chron reports.
The new rules are the latest step in a series of clampdowns to limit information coming out of the facility, which now detains approximately 450 individuals, including 99 children.
Last month, the Current reported that staff raided cells at the detention camp to confiscate and rip up drawings and letters by detained children detailing conditions inside.
That clampdown was in response to a ProPublica article that featured drawings and letters from child detainees, many of whom had been in custody for far longer than the 20-day maximum laid out in the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement.
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