Is it real that ICE is holding children and babies in detention facilities?

1. What the reporting documents: children are being held and moved to family centers

Multiple mainstream outlets documented recent enforcement actions in which children were taken into federal custody alongside parents and transported to family detention centers in Texas; Reuters and The New York Times describe a five‑year‑old and other minors taken from Minnesota and flown to Dilley, Texas, while Time and The Guardian report that Dilley is the primary facility capable of housing families on a long‑term basis ^{[1] [7] [2] [8]}. Local and national reporting also notes other minors detained in the same enforcement surge and that family sites such as Dilley and Karnes have been reopened or repurposed as the administration rebuilds family detention capacity ^{[9] [10] [11]}.

2. Legal and policy boundaries: unaccompanied children vs. family detention

There is a legal distinction in the reporting: court settlements and agency statements historically bar ICE from detaining unaccompanied minors, while parents may choose to be detained with their children or be separated and have caretakers appointed; ICE’s public materials emphasize detention standards and oversight programs that are supposed to govern facilities that house family units ^{[4] [5] [2]}. Advocacy groups and some journalists argue the Trump administration’s revival of family detention blurs those protections and restores a practice largely paused in 2021 ^{[9] [8]}.

3. Conditions alleged inside the facilities: multiple accounts of unsanitary and harmful treatment

Families, attorneys and court filings reported to PBS, The Marshall Project and other outlets allege extended detention, contaminated food and water, mold, worms in meals, inadequate medical care and other conditions that they say violate standards and harm children; PBS and The Marshall Project detail family claims that children are being held for long periods and exposed to unsanitary conditions ^{[6] [9] [12]}. Protests by detained families at Dilley and reporting from Texas Public Radio and PBS underscore those allegations and the distress among parents and children ^{[13] [14]}.

4. Government and contractor responses: claims of compliance and oversight

ICE, DHS and facility operators provide a contrasting account, asserting compliance with applicable detention standards, medical availability and procedures such as the Detained Parents Directive intended to allow caretaking arrangements and limit deportation when family‑court or child‑welfare matters are pending; DHS has defended specific enforcement actions and ICE’s detention management materials stress monitoring and standards for all facilities housing ICE detainees ^{[5] [10] [2] [9]}. Court filings from the government often include photographs and statements claiming adequate care, while families and attorneys say those portrayals contradict conditions they experienced ^[9].

5. Numbers, oversight and limits to what reporting proves

Different outlets provide different metrics: PBS reported more than 1,700 children in custody since family centers reopened in the spring, while The Marshall Project reported more than 3,800 children in ICE custody in a prior year’s tally — these figures indicate a substantial presence of minors in ICE custody but vary by timeframe and definition of custody ^{[6] [9]}. Reporting also documents reduced external oversight since agencies that formerly investigated detention abuses have been pared back, making independent verification of conditions inside some facilities difficult ^{[9] [11]}. Where the public record is incomplete, reporting stops short of definitive, independently verified inventories of every child in every site; the sources here document clear instances and systemic patterns but do not provide an exhaustive, real‑time census ^{[1] [7]}.

6. Bottom line and competing narratives

It is real that ICE is detaining children as part of family detention operations — including very young children — and those detentions have prompted legal challenges, protests and contrasting official defenses ^{[1] [13] [10]}. The dispute in the record is over legality, policy direction, compliance with child‑welfare standards and the conditions experienced by those children: government and contractor statements claim regulatory compliance and oversight, while families, lawyers and journalists allege extended detention and unsafe, unsanitary conditions that violate longstanding protections ^{[5] [9] [6]}.