Children languish in ICE detention long past 20-day court limit

ICE is not supposed to detain children for longer than 20 days under a decades-old court settlement. The Trump administration has routinely violated that limit.

Soon after immigration officials arrested him along with his wife and kids at the U.S. border and dropped them off at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, Aleksei began counting down the days.

“OK, 20 days. We just wait and pray for God to release us please after these 20 days.”

The U.S. isn’t supposed to hold minors for longer than that, the Russian asylum-seeker had been told, under a decades-old legal settlement intended to shield children from the harms of detention.

But 20 days came and went. Aleksei and his wife, who asked to be identified only by their first names out of fear of retaliation should they be deported, watched their 5-year-old twins unravel at the remote, prisonlike facility. When he approached an ICE officer and asked why the deadline had been ignored, the officer said to take it up with his boss.

“Who’s that?” Aleksei asked.