The South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley has been at the center of national outcry about the Trump White House’s immigration policies. Credit: Sanford Nowlin

A former contract employee at the South Texas Family Residential Center, who joined Wednesday’s protest calling for the release of 5-year-old Minnesota boy Liam Conejo Ramos, told the Current that a toxic and racist work culture pervades the detention facility.

“I got the vibe that, in there, the residents were viewed as less than human — vermin, pests,” former maintenance worker Jesse James Cruz, 21, told the Current. “[Detainees] were just another problem during the day to get around.”

Cruz said he was terminated from his job at the detention center about a year ago, for reasons “different than were put on paper.”

He recalled his time working at the facility with the Current as he marched four miles with protesters from Dilley’s Watermelon Park to the prison-like facility, which serves as the nation’s only detention center for immigrant families.

“It was a very hostile work environment,” James said. “I was called many things that I don’t wish to repeat.”

The migrant detention center has come under fire from immigrant-rights advocates, who say it fails to provide adequate care for those in its custody.

Court testimony filed by immigrant advocacy group RAICES in July alleged Dilley detainees face a lack of medical care, clean drinking water and adequate food. 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.

However, Cruz pushed back at some of those allegations.

“They are being fed regularly, and there are some nice folks [who work there],” he said.  “There’s always some good and some bad. But, the culture there was off, in that [detainees] were seen and viewed as less than human.”

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, inspected the detention center Wednesday and met with Ramos and his father.

Although Castro didn’t mention a lack of food or water in comments to the press following his tour, he did tell reporters that he and his staff are gravely concerned about the mental health of migrants held there. Castro now plans to revisit the facility next week to check in on Ramos and its 1,000-plus other detainees.

“There are no criminals at Dilley,” Castro said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. “None of those people has committed a crime.”

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...