Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, remember the rallies? President Trump would stand up at the rallies and say: We are going to get rid of the ``worst of the worst'' criminals who managed to sneak into the United States in violation of our immigration laws--the rapists, the murderers, the terrorists, the criminally insane, those who are exploiting our children. That was his goal, stated over and over again.

But let's look at the record. Earlier this month, in the midst of President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign, members of my staff traveled to Southwest Texas to conduct oversight of ICE's Dilley family detention facility. ICE allowed my staff 2 hours--just 2 hours--for the entire visit and notified them of the limitation when they were en route to the facility.

What is ICE and this administration trying to conceal?

My staff's visit uncovered serious issues. Let me tell you some of their findings.

If the Dilley detention facility sounds familiar, that is because that is where ICE held 5-year-old Liam Ramos, the boy in the blue bunny hat and the Spiderman backpack, whose image symbolizes this administration's inhumane detention agenda as part of their gross deportation effort.

After public outcry and a Federal court order, 5-year-old Liam was released after 10 days, but that is not the outcome for many children being held at the Dilley ICE facility.

Hayam El Gamal and her five children--ranging in age from 5 to 18-- have been held for nearly a year. That is believed to be the longest anyone has been detained during Trump's second term.

Hayam's husband faces serious State charges for a violent attack in Boulder, CO, last June. There is no question that he should face the full weight of the law. But the FBI and an immigration judge found Hayam and her children engaged in no wrongdoing and had no prior knowledge of their father's horrific actions. Should they be punished for his crime too?

Just yesterday, a magistrate judge recommended the family's habeas petition be granted. The judge found the family had been detained in violation of their due process rights and recommended they be released after being held for nearly 1 year.

The judge ruled:

[T]he government has engaged in procedural maneuvers aimed at thwarting the possibility of [El Gamal family's] discretionary release from the moment they were taken into custody.

If, despite the judge's recommendations, the Department of Homeland Security still objects to the release of an innocent woman and her five children, we know exactly why that is the case. It is not because they present any danger to the community or a flight risk. It is because they are immigrants--Arab Muslim immigrants at that.

Earlier this year, through their attorney, the El Gamal family submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee letters and drawings describing their life inside the Dilley detention facility in Texas.

In one letter, their 9-year-old child wrote:

We have been here for 9 months. I really miss playing with my toys and my watch. Please get us out of here.

In another, the 16-year-old wrote:

I have seen, with my own eyes, food that has mold in it. I even saw food with actual worms.

These are children in a facility run under Federal contract, paid for by you and me, the American taxpayers.

The mother has experienced despair and a recent medical emergency. Only 1 hour after my staff left the facilities, this mother was rushed to the emergency room in pain. The doctor recommended she receive an ultrasound. ICE denied it. Hayam has a history of cancer. She was denied a recommended diagnostic procedure. ICE is allowing this medical neglect, even when so many people are dying in immigration detention.

The El Gamal family's case is an extreme one, but, unfortunately, their experiences in detention are not uncommon, as there are widespread reports of inhumane conditions at ICE facilities across the country.

Earlier this month, the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association published a 22-year study of deaths in ICE custody. Its finding: The death rate in fiscal year 2026 is the highest in the entire study period--higher than any year on record, higher even than during the COVID outbreak.

And this year alone, 17 people have already died in immigration detention. They are people who died in American custody, many of them from treatable conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and infections.

This is happening inside a detention system that congressional Republicans injected with $45 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and now the Republicans want to use the partisan budget reconciliation process to pour even more money into this system. It is a system where about 90 percent of detention beds are run by private corporations for profit--not care standards but profits--and they hit record highs last year.

In February, I sent a letter to Secretary Kristi Noem, sounding the alarm on the dramatic increase in deaths in ICE detention. While she was shown the door--and thank goodness for that--problems at these facilities and at ICE persist.

The El Gamal family has been at Dilley for nearly a year. Hayam is a mother. Her youngest children are 5-year-old twins. They have done nothing wrong. It is time for the Federal Government to heed the recommendations of the magistrate judge and release them.

As the partial government shutdown of DHS continues, House Republicans refuse to even consider the bipartisan Senate-passed bill to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP. Democrats will not fund cruelty without accountability. We will continue to demand the reforms ICE and CBP require, including the end of roving patrols, requiring a judicial warrant to enter someone's home and conduct searches, a uniform code of conduct to restore trust--one similar to those followed by police departments in every corner of this country--and clear identification and the removal of masks to improve accountability.

As they prepare to turn to the partisan budget reconciliation process to fund ICE, Republicans in Congress have a choice: Demand accountability for every dollar we give this Agency or keep signing checks to a slush fund while people are detained by ICE.

Remember what the President said? We are going after the ``worst of the worst''--the terrorists, rapists, murderers, the criminally insane, those who are exploiting our children.

Does it sound like this family, which has been waiting in detention for 1 year with no charges, fits into that category? Of course not.

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