Press conference downtown Dilley, Texas, before the solidarity march to the Dilley detention facility. Deceleration Video
In quiet downtown Dilley, Texas, about 200 people from across Texas gathered beside a oversized watermelon sculpture to decry conditions inside CoreCivic's family detention center and demand the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and abolishing of ICE.
Candy, aged 13, told the crowd that she was detained and in custody at the age of three along with her mother.
“During this time I was under the custody of an officer and a dog that at one point terrorized me and this marked my infancy completely. It’s been 10 years and I still fill with panic any time I see a dog.”
They then marched miles across town to protest in front of the facility, where just days before hundreds of the incarcerated themselves raised their voices demanding the world's attention. Many were met with batons and tear gas.
DILLEY, Texas—‘Unify to Dilley’ attendees gathered on the side of the road just outside of this small South Texas community on April 18, 2026, with three key demands: shut
Brown skin—a metric used by ICE to trigger investigations and detentions—means not that one is an 'invader,' but likely an heir of the continent's original Indigenous inhabitants. Why don't more claim that inheritance?