(DILLEY, Texas) — Emergency calls that were placed in recent months from a South Texas family detention center and obtained by ABC News reveal a series of medical emergencies involving pregnant women and young children that advocates say underscore their concerns about the sprawling ICE facility.
The 911 audio calls from Frio County, dating from October 2025 through February 2026, document medical staff at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley requesting ambulances for migrant detainees experiencing seizures, fainting and respiratory distress.
In one call from January, a staff member requested assistance for a 17-month-old child.
“I’m calling for a little kid going through respiratory distress,” the caller told dispatchers.
In other calls, medical staff asked for ambulances for a 6-year-old boy with lethargy and a high fever, a 14-month-old in respiratory distress, and a 22-month-old with a fever and low oxygen levels.
“We need an ambulance,” one caller said. “We have a child with a high fever.”
Immigrant advocates, medical professionals and lawmakers have raised concerns in recent weeks about conditions at the South Texas facility.
ABC News recently interviewed a couple who said their 1-year-old daughter contracted COVID-19 and RSV during their 60-day detention. The family alleges medical staff at Dilley dismissed their daughter’s symptoms.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who visited 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos while he was detained with his father at Dilley, also recently raised concerns about a 2-month-old infant before the child’s release. After Castro’s statements, detention center staffers made several calls to Frio County regarding the infant.
“Hi, I’m calling about a child that is at the detention center, a baby that is very sick, and I want to know if you guys can go do a child wellness check,” one caller said.
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security, which operates the nation’s migrant detention centers, disputed allegations made by detained families and advocates about Dilley. In a statement, DHS said that detainees have “ongoing access to on-site medical professionals, including physicians, pediatricians, nurses, and mental health care providers.”
“The truth is this facility provided proper medical care for all detainees including access to a pediatrician,” Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said. “The fact is being in detention is a choice. We encourage all parents to take control of their departure by using the CBP Home app and receiving a free flight home and $2,600.
The 911 records also detail emergencies involving pregnant detainees. One call reports a woman experiencing a seizure, while another describes a woman three months pregnant who had lost consciousness.
“She is non-responsive. They found her on the ground,” a staff member told the dispatcher.
“We have a middle-aged woman pregnant and she’s seizing,” a medical staffer said in another call.
As of last month, there were about 1,400 people being held at Dilley, including children and parents, according to RAICES, an immigrant legal advocacy group. The facility was closed during the Biden administration and reopened last year as the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement measures increased.
Dr. Anita Patel, a board-certified pediatrician who recently sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem calling for the release of all children at Dilley, said detained families “are not receiving the standard of care.”
“What is clearly evident is they have no ability to recognize potentially lethal or emergent situations, and they have no clinical acumen to say when something is a medical emergency,” Dr. Patel said of the calls.
“What I am hearing from families and what we are witnessing is a human rights catastrophe,” she told ABC News. “They don’t have access to medical care, they don’t have access to appropriate nutrition; all of these standard humanitarian policies stated by the U.N. all the way down to laws are not being followed.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News regarding the 911 calls.
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