Attorney Eric Lee was waiting to see a client inside the largest ICE family detention centre in the United States when guards suddenly burst in and ordered all visitors to leave.
Outside the barbed-wire perimeter, Lee peered through the fence to see hundreds of detainees in coloured jackets erupting in protest.
“They were chanting ‘let us out, let us out’,” the immigration lawyer recalled.
The 2,400-bed facility in Dilley, southern Texas, detains thousands of immigrant families swept up in the Trump administration’s aggressive ICE arrests.
Many of the detainees are children, including five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was recently released from the centre after national outrage over his arrest in the driveway of his Minneapolis home.
The protest was driven by mounting anger over deteriorating conditions inside the centre, amid reports of contaminated food, overcrowding and medical neglect.
As of mid-January, a record 73,000 people were being held in more than 200 ICE detention centres across the United States, according to the American Immigration Council.
The population has risen by 75 per cent in one year and is expected to balloon dramatically in the coming months as the Trump administration fulfils its election pledge to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in US history.
Civil rights watchdogs say the rapid expansion has been accompanied by worsening conditions and a growing number of deaths in custody.
Lee described what his clients inside report as “a deliberate policy of cruelty”.
“The water is putrid yet mothers have to mix baby formula with it,” he said.
“Food has bugs and debris in it. Guards are regularly engaging in verbal abuse.”
At another detention centre in Texas, civil rights groups allege detainees are subjected to regular beatings by guards and are forced to use clothing to mop up sewage water pooling in areas where meals are served.
In Maryland, a viral video showing dozens of people packed into an ICE holding cell in Baltimore sparked outrage and a lawsuit by immigration advocates alleging “inhumane conditions”.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin rejected the accusations as “garbage”.
“Any claims there are inhumane conditions at ICE detention centres or overcrowding are false,” she said.
“ICE is regularly audited and inspected by external agencies to ensure that all ICE facilities comply with performance-based national detention standards.”
Ms McLaughlin said all meals were evaluated by certified dieticians and that detainees were given access to the best healthcare “many aliens have received in their entire lives”.
“All detainees are provided with three meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, and toiletries, and have access to phones to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” she said.
However, civil rights watchdogs and attorneys like Lee refuted that assertion, saying such standards were rarely met.
Families indefinitely detained
Mr Lee represents a mother and her five children who have been detained indefinitely in Dilley for nearly eight months with no clear pathway to release.
The El Gamal family are the wife and children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who allegedly attacked demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado last year at an event supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The family has strenuously denied any knowledge of, or involvement in, the alleged attack and have cooperated fully with authorities.
Friends and former teachers in Colorado Springs have campaigned for their release, calling for them to be afforded due process as is enshrined in the US constitution.
“The White House has focused on this family with a level of vindictiveness that is shocking,” Lee said.
“They are not guilty of anything but are being punished by association.”
Habiba Soliman, the eldest child in the El Gamal family, turned 18 while in detention and was separated from her family shortly after her birthday.
In a letter written from inside the facility, she described the family’s despair after an immigration judge denied them bond last week.
“At that moment, everything that we had left was completely shattered,” she wrote.
“It’s hard to watch our lives and dreams be destroyed while we are just waiting helplessly.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says the El Gamals are among thousands of immigrants held indefinitely without due process or the opportunity to argue for their release in a bond hearing.
‘A systemic policy of violence’
The Camp East Montana facility located on the outskirts of El Paso has become one of the most notorious ICE detention centres, with three deaths recorded in the past two months alone.
The sprawling tent encampment is the largest ICE detention facility in the United States and one of the largest in the world, with capacity for up to 5,000 detainees.
The ACLU has gathered testimony from more than 40 detainees alleging physical and sexual abuse by guards, warning of an unfolding humanitarian disaster.
“The situation is a crisis… beatings are occurring for things as simple as requesting medication,” said Savannah Kumar, a staff attorney with the watchdog in Texas.
A recent report from the civil rights watchdog alleged one teenage detainee required hospitalisation after being beaten by guards.
“One officer ‘grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them,’ while another ‘forced his fingers deep into my ears’… The damage so severe he now has trouble hearing,” the report read.
Lee, who also represented a client at the El Paso site, accused the administration of a “systematic policy of violence”.
He said immigrants were beaten in showers where there were no cameras and subjected to “the most vile types of racial abuse”.
The department did not respond to requests for comment regarding deaths in custody or allegations of physical abuse by guards.
Last year, 32 people died in ICE custody, marking the deadliest year in more than two decades.
In early January, a Cuban immigrant died at the El Paso facility after a struggle with guards.
Officials said officers were attempting to restrain the man during a suicide attempt, but a recent autopsy report by the El Paso County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by asphyxiation.
Immigrants released to Texan shelter
In Laredo, Texas, Reverend Michael Smith has taken in more than 240 immigrants released from ICE custody over the past two weeks.
Each night, dozens of immigrants arrived at his shelter by bus or van — many exhausted, sick with flu-like symptoms, carrying a plastic bag of belongings.
“People arrive uncertain of what’s next. They don’t know where they stand in the system, they have no idea because nothing’s been explained to them, other than ‘here’s your new court date’,” he said.
Reverend Smith said his non-profit feared reprisals from the government for assisting immigrants, and that loved ones had urged him not to accept released detainees.
“It could be taken as an affront … as you raising your fist to the current administration … but so be it," he said.
“It shouldn’t be about dogma or policy … it should be as simple as help thy neighbour.”
Recent Reuters/Ipsos polling shows support for Trump’s handling of immigration has fallen to 39 per cent — the lowest level since his inauguration.
While many Republicans continue to back the administration’s push for mass deportations, one in five said ICE agents had gone “too far” in their enforcement actions.
The decline in support has coincided with widespread protests following the killings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot dead by ICE agents in Minneapolis last month.
Despite the criticism, the Trump administration is pushing ahead with plans to expand detention capacity, aided by a $US45 billion budget approved in Congress last year.
Now the administration is reportedly planning to purchase more than 20 warehouses to convert into immigration jails.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has said an expansion in detention capacity is necessary to speed up deportations, reduce the time individuals spend in custody and to ensure the government meets its enforcement goals.
In a statement, the department said it had no new detention sites to announce but that new facilities would be “very well structured” and meet federal standards.
“Thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, ICE has new funding to expand detention space to keep these criminals off American streets before they are removed for good from our communities,” it said.
