At least nine babies held in Ice detention in Texas

• Legal complaint warns of ‘alarming increase’ in child detention
• Honduran mothers say children are unwell and have lost weight

Amanda Holpuch in New York
Thu 28 Feb 2019 22.51 GMT

At least nine infants under the age of one are being held in a Texas immigrant detention facility, according to a complaint filed Thursday with the US Department of Homeland Security that warned of an “alarming increase” in how many infants are detained.

Immigrant rights groups have urged DHS to immediately release the infants and their mothers, who said their children were sick, had lost weight and were crying more than usual.

One of the infants turned six months old in DHS custody at the South Texas Family Residential center in Dilley, where the infants and their families are receiving legal support from the Dilley Pro Bono Project.

The group’s advocacy coordinator, Katy Murdza, said they started noticing infants under the age of one were being held last week. “We’ve almost never seen this before,” Murdza told the Guardian.

It is unusual for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the DHS agency that oversees immigration detention, to detain infants.

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