BREAKING: ICE Raided Children's Dorms at Dilley and Confiscated Their Letters. I'm Suing to Get Them Back.

In our latest lawsuit, MSW Media is demanding children's letters confiscated by ICE agents, and the Office of General Counsel memo authorizing warrantless home entry.

On February 9th ProPublica reported:

A rainbow, a family portrait, a heart. These are the drawings found in handwritten letters from children detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas.

In early February there were more than 750 families, nearly half of them including children, as well as some 370 single adult women being held at this facility. It is just one of many immigration centers across the country, but the only one holding families. Since the start of the Trump administration, the number of children in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention has skyrocketed, increasing sixfold.

ProPublica received letters in mid-January from several children at Dilley. All but two of them had been living in the United States when they were detained. In their words and drawings, they convey how much they ache for creature comforts and describe the anguish of being trapped. They write about missing their friends and teachers, falling behind at school, having unreliable access to medical care when they’re sick — some say they’re sick a lot — and feeling scared about what comes next.

Three days later - during a House Homeland Security hearing, Rep. James Walkinshaw read some of the handwritten letters and shared drawings from the children held in ICE family detention — then questioned ICE acting director Todd Lyons about them.

Then on February 17th, Pablo Manríquez with Migrant Insider reported “Staff at the ICE concentration camp in Dilley, Texas have begun raiding the dormitories of kids and their parents to confiscate and destroy letters from the children.”

I’m suing ICE to get them back.

The same day Pablo Manríquez reported that ICE agents had raided the dormitories, Kel McClanahan at National Security Counselors filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demanding the letters, but the Department of Homeland Security has not responded. So yesterday, we filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia. We are also suing for the DHS Office of General Counsel memo that purports to legally justify entering homes without a judicial warrant.

National Security Counselors does this work with us pro bono, but you can support them with a tax-deductible donation here.

You can support MSW Media by becoming a free or paid subscriber.

You can read our full complaint here.

And you can watch my brief breakdown of this lawsuit by clicking the link below.

~AG