CHILDREN IN DETENTION • CORECIVIC
“We forgot what it feels like to be free.”
CoreCivic and GEO Group have held thousands of children in ICE detention facilities — many for far longer than the court-prescribed 20-day limit.
Silencing Children's Voices
ICE has detained more than 6,200 children in CoreCivic and GEO Group ICE facilities since 2025, many of them for longer than the 20-day limit prescribed by courts — with some children as young as five held for more than nine months.
In legal filings last year, parents said their children were so desperate for toys that they resorted to playing with rocks at CoreCivic's Dilley, Texas facility. “Children were under so much psychological stress that parents said they were hitting their own faces or wetting themselves despite being potty-trained,” the Marshall Project reported.
After the Texas Tribune and ProPublica published drawings from children detained at the Dilley facility earlier this year, parents there reported a clampdown: CoreCivic guards searched rooms and removed the children's art supplies.
Rather than telling their stories here, we ask that you take a few minutes to give your attention to what CoreCivic hopes to silence: the voices of the children it is helping keep imprisoned.
CITIZENS BANK'S ROLE
In 2019, eight major U.S. banks pledged to cut ties with CoreCivic and GEO Group.
Citizens Bank didn't.
While the for-profit prison companies Citizens is backing hurt our neighbors, the bank continues to tout its commitment to fostering strong communities.
A letter from Hayam El Gamal's 9-year-old daughter. Provided by attorneys for the El Gamal family to the Texas Tribune.
An excerpt from a letter from Hayam El Gamal's 16-year-old son. Provided by attorneys for the El Gamal family to the Texas Tribune.
A drawing from Hayam El Gamal's 9-year-old daughter. Provided by attorneys for the El Gamal family to the Texas Tribune.
An excerpt from a letter from Hayam El Gamal's 16-year-old son. Provided by attorneys for the El Gamal family to the Texas Tribune.
A letter from 13-year-old Gerson Lopéz Garcia, obtained by ProPublica.
“We are all stuck in rooms that can hold 12 people they won’t let us go out to the playgrounds and park and it’s very boring to do every day God touch the hearts of those at ICE let us out We are not criminals I want to go home.”
A letter obtained by ProPublica from a child detained at CoreCivic's Dilley, Texas ICE facility. “I feel bad being here! Bad because I can’t because I can’t see my pet willi and I can’t eat what I want and I can’t see my friends from school and at home.”
More of our neighbors' stories
“He has to remove his prosthetics and then he crawls across floors covered with mold and feces to shower.”
After a lifetime in the U.S., father, husband and double amputee Rodney Taylor faces declining health in CoreCivic's Stewart ICE facility where he has been held for more than a year.
“It’s just one of the worst feelings. Here I am on deployment, on active duty, and they are abusing my mom.”
Reyna's son returned from his deployment to learn of her abuse by a GEO Group employee. GEO monitors more than 180,000 people in their communities, with few guardrails against abuse.
