Keke Palmer, John Legend and other celebrities call for ‘immediate closure’ of Texas ICE facility
TheGrio...
The Dilley Immigration Processing Center has made national headlines for holding child detainees like Liam Conejo Ramos and has received a multitude of allegations of abuse and neglect.
A group of celebrities is taking a stance against a Texas ICE facility, signing an open letter calling out the detention center’s “abuse against children,” “rotten food,” and “dangerous medical neglect.”
John Legend, Keke Palmer, Wunmi Mosaku, and Billy Porter are among the actors, artists, and musicians who signed the letter demanding the closure of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, which has received national attention and been investigated by several news outlets for its cruelty toward detainees, particularly children. In the open letter, the signees point out that “children held in immigration detention endure trauma, neglect and conditions that violate basic standards of health, safety, dignity and human rights.”
Many began to condemn the Texas center after a five-year-old named Liam Conejo Ramos was kidnapped by ICE agents in January on his way home from school in Minnesota and sent to Dilley. The agency used the boy as “bait” to find his father, according to the Columbia Heights Public School District.
The children’s YouTuber, Ms. Rachel, has been bringing attention to the facility and its harm to children and families. Recently, she shared the stories of two boys, ages five and nine, whom she communicated with over video calls. Both were released days after she shared the videos.
At the Dilley detention center, there have been reports of sick children being denied medical care, contaminated food and dirty water, and even minors self-harming and attempting suicide as the conditions exacerbated their stress and trauma. Children are also supposed to be held within a 20-day limit, a rule that has been reportedly violated several times at Dilley. These issues are pointed out in the open letter.
“The harms of detaining children are known and well documented,” the letter says. “Court filings of abuse against children have included refusals to provide clean water, rotten food contaminated with worms, dangerous medical neglect, sleep deprivation, denial of legal counsel, the separation of children from their families, and retaliation against families protesting the inhumane conditions.”
President Donald Trump reopened the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in March 2025, in a deal made with the private prison company CoreCivic, as part of his expansion of immigration detention centers throughout the nation. Within the first nine months of reopening the facility, over 3,800 children were booked there, per an Associated Press analysis of data from the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project.
Many celebrities have been outspoken against ICE, especially after the agency’s increased presence in Minneapolis, which resulted in the murders of two American citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good. They have shown up to awards events with “ICE Out” pins, and used their acceptance speeches to say “F–k ICE.” This open letter, signed by almost 200 entertainers, including Gina Torres, Ayo Edebiri, and Aisha Tyler, is another way Hollywood is using its platform to demand change.
“Children belong in schools and on playgrounds, not in detention centers. We urge the federal government and CoreCivic to close the Dilley facility immediately, return children and families to the homes and communities they were taken from and to end child imprisonment now,” the letter says. “Our commitment does not end with closure. We demand transparency, accountability, and systemic reforms to prevent these abuses from happening anywhere in the United States.”