Tiny prison uniforms were replaced with T-shirts. Health care and schooling improved. Experts say there is still no safe way to incarcerate families
DILLEY, TEXAS — On a burning hot day last summer at the South Texas Family Residential Center, a federal detention facility for immigrant families, Kenia and her son, Michael, 11, were hunched over a foosball table in an air-conditioned recreation room when Michael dropped to the floor and started sobbing. He curled his body into a ball and writhed as if he were in pain.
The other parents and children in the room looked up from their jump ropes and boomboxes as Kenia knelt down and pleaded into Michael’s ear: Would he please go back to their room before the guards noticed him?
“I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here,” Michael shouted, his eyes clenched.