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July 28, 2026

WATCH: Pressley Tours Dilley ICE Detention Center, Renews Her Demands for Its Immediate Closure & the Release of Families

Pressley Was One of First Members of Congress to Call for Closure of Dilley and Honored Children Detained by ICE as Honorary State of the Union Guests

Pressley Has Stood in Vigorous Defense of Immigrant Communities, Fought to Bring Detained Neighbors Home, and Led Efforts Address Childhood Trauma

Press Conference (YouTube)

SAN ANTONIO – Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) toured the ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas and renewed her calls for its immediate closure and the release of children and families imprisoned there. Following a Congressional oversight inspection of the facility, the Congresswoman held a press conference alongside Congressman Joaquín Castro, Democratic Women’s Caucus Representatives Lizzie Fletcher, Luz Rivas, and Yassamin Ansari, as well as Todd Schulte of FWD.us, advocates from Families Together, and Dr. Anita K. Patel, MD.

Congresswoman Pressley was one of the first members of Congress to call for the closure of Dilley and remains strident in her advocacy. In February of 2026 she honored children impacted by the cruel actions of ICE as her honorary guests for a Joint Address to Congress, including children imprisoned at Dilley with their parents.

“The world is watching as the Trump administration separates immigrant families, destroys the lives of children and parents, and locks them away without due process or access to adequate water, food, education, and medical care,” said Congresswoman Pressley in a statement. “What we witnessed in this facility was harrowing and horrific. I leave today clear as ever that Congress must close Dilley, end the practice of family detention, and abolish ICE now. We must put an end to Trump and ICE’s campaign of terror, and keep fighting for dignity, humanity, and freedom for every single one of our neighbors.”

“Today, I met again with the children and families being detained in Dilley. For months I have been visiting Dilley, where there still remains no access to proper medical care, food, or education. Despite repeated and continued calls from myself, my colleagues, and our communities demanding, this cruel and inhumane treatment continues. The children and families being held at Dilley must be freed and the center closed immediately.” – said Rep. Joaquin Castro (TX-20)

“What we saw today at Dilley was nothing short of horrific. No child, woman, or family should be locked up like this. We must close Dilley now and release these families. Children are being jailed and traumatized while private contractors profit from it, all at the expense of American taxpayers.” – said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03)

“Every American needs to know what we saw at the ICE Detention Center in Dilley today because it is the opposite of what we say we stand for as Americans. What we saw when we went to the facility to conduct oversight was desperation and indefinite detention for some—many women waiting for months and months with no information about their cases.  By definition, no one at Dilley has a criminal record, but there we spoke with women who had little contact with the world outside, little information, and little hope.  They are experiencing trauma while the rest of the country goes on without insight into their conditions or their cases because the U.S. government is not being honest with the American people about what, how, and why it is doing what it is doing.  It must stop.  This mass detention of women, children, and families does not serve the interests of the American people and does not represent who we are or aspire to be as a people.” – said Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07)

“ICE is being increasingly secretive about their actions at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. We were only allowed to speak to one child out of 112 children – and even that interaction was cut short.ICE is traumatizing over 500 individuals – including pregnant women, children, and infants as young as 2 months old – and subjecting them to inhumane conditions for extended periods of time. These individuals should be living their lives, welcoming their newborn children, playing with their friends, and raising their families outside of ICE detention. The Trump Administration must be held accountable for the trauma it is inflicting on immigrant families. Children should not be detained, and I am continuing to call for the Dilley Detention Facility to be shut down, immediately.” – Rep. Luz Rivas

“The inhumane conditions at Dilley are well-documented and we must end family detention. This includes shutting down Dilley and releasing these children and families immediately. Dilley lacks basic necessities for anyone, especially children: no access to clean water, medical care, or proper education. Dilley reflects a broader pattern that should not be expanded with additional, unprecedented taxpayer funding. Yet, Congress has committed more than $260 billion to expand enforcement, on top of the regular appropriations to ICE and CBP of roughly $30 billion for FY25. This will only cause irreparable harm to children and communities. Thank you to the Members who continue to call for the release of families and we join them in their calls for Dilley’s closure.” – said Todd Schulte, President of FWD.us, at the press conference.

Following reports of inhumane conditions and treatment at Dilley and other ICE facilities, Congresswoman Pressley checked on the welfare of families imprisoned at Dilley and conducting Congressional oversight. She and her colleagues shared firsthand observations from the facility, discussed the conditions detained families face, and called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to immediately release families held at Dilley and close the facility.

In Congress, Congresswoman Pressley has been a leading voice in pushing back against Trump, defending our immigrant neighbors, and calling for ICE to be abolished. Rep. Pressley leads legislation to bring accountability to families whose loved ones have been murdered and harmed by ICE agents, including the DHS Use of Force Transparency Act and the Qualified Immunity Abolition Act.

A full transcript of the Congresswoman’s remarks is available below, and video of the press conference is available here.

Transcript: Rep. Pressley’s Remarks Following Oversight Inspection of Dilley ICE Detention Center

San Antonio, TX

July 28, 2026

My name is Ayanna Pressley. I’m a Congresswoman representing the Massachusetts Seventh congressional district, which includes the city of Boston, also home to the third largest Haitian diaspora in the country. And so I’ve been on the front lines of this, these grave injustices in many ways.

I do want to also just commend Congressman Castro and his entire team, and Fwd.us, for your vigilance.

It’s so important that we not normalize this. It’s so important that we not acquiesce to this.

This, this fascist administration, this dictator in the Oval Office—history has shown us time again appeasement does not work. The only way to beat a dictator is with defiance. The only way to beat fascism is to refuse to accept this segregated, divided, dark, dystopian view that they have for our country. To reject it as an inevitability.

So we have to resist, reject, condemn at every turn, and shine a light.

And so I’m so grateful for the leadership of Congressman Castro. This is his eighth oversight visit to the Dilley detention facility.

I want to do some quick level setting here. So, and please correct me if my notes were inaccurate. So there are currently 539 individuals, 84 families. 50 out of those 84 families are male, head of household. 16 are female, head of household, and then there are 18 that are dual. There are also four pregnant women.

And I want to correct the record because earlier I said when we first came out of Dilley after our, after our oversight visit that they characterized all the detainees as low-level non-violent criminals. That’s inaccurate. They characterize them as low-level non-criminals.

That’s how they were all—that’s, that’s how, when we were getting our orientation and asking our questions of the officers, that’s how they characterize the detainees: low-level non-criminals.

So it seems their only crime is that they exist?

These are law-abiding people that are our neighbors, people we love, we live next to, we work and worship with, who were just going about their lives and met with such an aggressive disruption that they will be recovering from for the rest of their lives.

And I also just want to say that this these are two sides of a very evil for-profit coin. I have worked my entire life to dismantle mass incarceration, and I need people to understand that if you are outraged by the number of Black and low-income people that are incarcerated, the same for-profit system is driving the unlawful detainment and deportation of our immigrant neighbors.

CoreCivic is worth over a billion dollars, so this for-profit infrastructure, this for-profit evil, is for child abuse. They are for child neglect. They are for childhood trauma. They are for family separation.

One of the young women that I met with—and I have to say, every time I leave a detention facility, I am conflicted. Because I want to uplift these stories, but I don’t want to further endanger anyone. And I know very often when we leave these facilities, they are met with great hostility, and I don’t want to put them in any more harm’s way.

But one young woman that I met with, 30 years old, she is the mother of two children, a five-year-old girl and a three-year-old girl.

She fell into my arms within a matter of seconds, sharing with me that she was unable to wish her five-year-old daughter a happy birthday.

She also talked to me about how she arrived, how she ended up there. She was delivering packages. She’s a delivery driver, and there was a problem with her hazards. So she pulled over her car and had the lights blinking while she went in to deliver the package.

When she came out, law enforcement was there. They asked for an ID. She said, you know, “Why?” But she provided it. It was a Mexico ID. So this young lady, this 30-year-old young woman, she was here on a tourist visa from Mexico. Her mother, who brought her here at the age of four years old, developed cancer and died. So she’s been living here since the age of four, working, law-abiding.

She fell into an abusive relationship, and there were many, many times that the police were called on her husband, who was a violent abuser, and she is so upset because that abuser currently has the custody of her children.

So here she is, someone who is a survivor of domestic violence, law-abiding, making positive contributions, an incredible mom, and she asked me, “My husband was released on a bond of $150 after he beat me for hours and even tried to run me over with his car, and I was told that if I wanted to bond out, I would need to pay $9,000, and I’ve committed no crime.”

I asked her if her faith is some of what keeps her strong in this moment, and she said, “My faith in God is being tested every day. My faith in this country.”

And then just as I close this, I want to say, so many of the detainees that I have met, whether I was in Louisiana or Texas or in Massachusetts, they are some of the greatest patriots you will ever meet.

They love this country, and they are making positive, they have been making positive contributions to it every day, and it is a great betrayal.

And you see that. You see that betrayal in their eyes. You see the vacancy in their eyes. You see the trauma in their eyes.

So Dilley must be shut down. We have to abolish ICE, and then I’m going to take it one step further and say, any of those agents that have contributed to and caused the injury, the harm, and even fatalities, they must also be held accountable. And we should abolish qualified immunity for these federal law enforcement officers. There must be some recourse and some restitution.

And with that, we’ll now turn it over to another incredible member and colleague in the Democratic Women’s Caucus. Again, this is a joint oversight visit with Congressman Castro and the women of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, Rep Rivas.

—

As immigrant communities have been under siege by the Trump administration, Rep. Pressley has been a leading voice in pushing back and defending our immigrant neighbors.

In the Massachusetts 7th, Rep. Pressley has supported the many families torn apart and children suffering from the detention of a loved one—including harrowing attacks on Massachusetts families in their daily lives, abductions of dedicated workers at the Allston car wash, visiting Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk during her unlawful detention and pushing to bring her home, and more.

Rep. Pressley has shone light on the inhumane attacks by ICE on immigrant communities and pushed back against the reckless agency. During Oversight Democrats’ bicameral shadow hearing on the use of violence by ICE, Rep. Pressley highlighted the urgency of the moment by uplifting stories of traumatized community members she met with during her trip to Minnesota with Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05) and invoking the horrifying detention case of five-year-old Liam Ramos.

Rep. Pressley has stridently condemned the trauma that Trump’s terror ICE campaign is forcing upon children. Rep. Pressley’s advocacy to protect children from abuse and trauma dates back to her days as a Boston City Councilor. In her first term in Congress, she partnered with the late Chairman Elijah Cummings to hold the first Congressional hearing on childhood trauma on the Committee on Oversight and Reform.

Rep. Pressley leads the STRONG Support for Children Act, which would support communities in addressing childhood trauma through healing-centered, neighborhood-based, gender-responsive, culturally specific, and trauma-informed approaches that acknowledge the impact of systemic racism and inequities over generations.

During her time in Congress, Congresswoman Pressley has been a leading advocate for a just and humane criminal legal system, and has visited prisons in Louisiana, Texas, California, and Massachusetts to hear from detainees, advocate for them, and conduct oversight on the conditions in which they are being detained. Rep. Pressley’s visit to Louisiana is a continuation of her advocacy for a People’s Justice Guarantee, her comprehensive, decarceration-focused resolution that outlines a framework for a fair, equitable and just legal system.

  • In January 2026, Rep. Pressley and Senator Markey held a field hearing with members of the Haitian community on the importance of extending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti. Testimony was documented in the Congressional Record.
  • In January 2026, at the invitation of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Congresswoman Pressley went to Minneapolis to meet with organizers and community members impacted by ICE’s violent operation in Minnesota, where they have murdered bystanders, terrorized schools and small businesses, and abducted children and parents.
  • Following the ICE murder of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Congresswoman Pressley and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the Qualified Immunity Abolition Act of 2026, which builds on the lawmakers’ prior work by granting victims the right to sue federal law enforcement officers—not just state and local—for civil rights violations and abolishing the defense of qualified immunity in these suits. The expanded legislation would help deliver accountability for families abused by law enforcement, including ICE agents.
  • Congresswoman Pressley delivered a floor speech on the need to end qualified immunity for federal law enforcement, including immigration officers. Watch the floor speech here.
  • In January 2026, Congresswoman Pressley condemned the ICE murder of Renee Good in Minnesota and motioned to subpoena all records and footage related to the shooting, but Republicans obstructed it. Footage of Congresswoman Pressley’s motion to subpoena is here.
  • In December 2025, Rep. Pressley convened and welcomed home the workers and families impacted by the cruel and unlawful ICE raid at an Allston car wash in November. Rep. Pressley delivered a powerful speech on the House floor condemning the Allston ICE raid and defended the vibrant immigrant communities who are being maliciously stolen from their homes, ripped from their families, and unlawfully detained and deported by the Trump Administration and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
  • In June 2025, Congresswoman Pressley convened immigrant justice advocates, local leaders, and impacted families to tell Donald Trump and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): Hands off our immigrant neighbors. 
  • Rep. Pressley has also been an outspoken critic against the unlawful detention of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts PhD student, Somerville resident, and constituent of the Congresswoman’s who was unlawfully detained for weeks in retaliation for her protected speech. After weeks of advocacy and Congressional oversight, including a visit to detention centers in Louisiana, Rep. Pressley and Senator Ed Markey welcomed Ms. Öztürk to Massachusetts following her arrival from ICE detention in Louisiana.

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