According to court filings, several children have been detained for up to 168 days, far exceeding the 20-day limit for detention in unlicensed facilities.
Published December 10, 2025
Hundreds of immigrant children in the United States are in federal custody beyond court-imposed limits, including some who have been held for more than five months, according to court filings.
The filing is a wake-up call for legal advocates who say the government is failing to protect children.
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The report was filed late Monday in an ongoing civil lawsuit that began in 1985 and created court-ordered standards of oversight in 1997. Ultimately, a 20-day limit was established for children in detention.
The Trump administration is trying to scrap the agreement.
Lawyers for the detainees emphasized that the U.S. government itself acknowledged that migrant children were being held for long periods, sometimes in hotels used for detention purposes.
They also cited reports from families and federal facility monitors, alleging that children were exposed to contaminated food, lacked access to medical care and inadequate legal representation.
About 400 immigrant children were held beyond the 20-day limit between August and September, according to a Dec. 1 report from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Children’s legal advocates told the court that the problem was widespread and not specific to any particular area or facility.
The main factors that extended release were categorized into three groups: transportation delays, medical needs, and legal proceedings.
Advocates argued that these reasons did not legitimately justify a delay in release. Through interviews with detained families, advocates identified five children who had been detained for 168 days. The age of the children was not listed in the report.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Federal courts have allowed the use of hotels for temporary detention for up to 72 hours, but lawyers question the government’s data and believe it does not adequately explain why children were held in hotel rooms for more than three days.
Since the Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas, reopened this year, conditions at the detention facility have remained a concern.
Advocates for documenting injuries suffered by children and lack of access to adequate medical care. One child bleeding from an eye injury was not seen by medical staff for two days.
Another child’s leg was broken when a staff member dropped a volleyball net pole, according to court filings.
“Medical staff told one family whose child had food poisoning to return only if the child vomited eight times,” the advocates wrote in their response.
“Children are suffering from diarrhea, heartburn, and stomach aches, and we are literally feeding them food that has bugs in it,” one family staying at Dilley’s facility wrote in a statement filed with the court.
Another wrote that they were given “broccoli and cauliflower that was moldy and had bugs.”
Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California is scheduled to hold a press hearing next week, where she could decide whether the court needs to intervene.
