Madonna, Maren Morris, Pedro Pascal, and More Call for Shut Down of Notorious ICE Detention Center

“No child should be locked in an immigration detention center,” reads an open letter signed by a growing list of Hollywood stars, physicians, policy experts, and organizations demanding the “immediate closure” of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas. Hundreds of young children, teenagers, and their parents have been held at the remote facility that has drawn mounting scrutiny over reports of its dehumanizing conditions .

“Children held in immigration detention endure trauma, neglect and conditions that violate basic standards of health, safety, dignity and human rights,” reads the open letter. “The harms of detaining children are known and well documented. Court filings of abuse against children have included refusals to provide clean water, rotten food contaminated with worms, dangerous medical neglect, sleep deprivation, denial of legal counsel, the separation of children from their families, and retaliation against families protesting the inhumane conditions.

Children belong in schools and on playgrounds, not in detention centers.” The center was opened by the Obama administration in 2014, then closed by the Biden administration in 2024. Last spring, Trump’s White House’s reopened the facility...