{"id":201816,"date":"2026-02-27T22:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/911-calls-capture-kids-burning-with-fever-struggling-to-breathe-at-ice-detention-center-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T22:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:41:15","slug":"911-calls-capture-kids-burning-with-fever-struggling-to-breathe-at-ice-detention-center-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/911-calls-capture-kids-burning-with-fever-struggling-to-breathe-at-ice-detention-center-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"911 calls capture kids burning with fever, struggling to breathe at ICE detention center – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The voices on the emergency calls sound calm. Matter-of-fact. Routine.
\u201cFrio County 911. What is your emergency?\u201d<\/em>
\u201cI\u2019m calling from the Dilley immigration center in Dilley, Texas. I\u2019m calling for a little kid going through respiratory distress.\u201d<\/em>
The callers \u2014 medical staff inside the remote facility that houses hundreds of immigrant children and their parents in South Texas \u2014 tick through the clinical details: symptoms, vital signs, ages.
\u201cHe\u2019s a 6-year-old male.\u201d<\/em>
\u201cSixty?\u201d<\/em>
\u201cSix-year-old.\u201d<\/em>
On the calls, staff at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center request ambulances for children struggling to breathe, burning with fever or appearing lethargic \u2014 emergencies unfolding inside a detention center that lawyers, immigration advocates and pediatricians have warned is not suitable for children.
\u201cWe have a child that is possibly having an allergic reaction. Male, little boy.\u201d<\/em>
\u201cIt\u2019s a 13-year-old. Possible leg fracture.\u201d<\/em>
\u201cHe\u2019s desatting. \u2026 His oxygen level is 80.\u201d<\/em>
\u201cFive to 7 years old \u2026 three seizures today.\u201d<\/em>
Since mid-September, emergency crews have been dispatched to Dilley at least 11 times to treat children in medical distress, according to EMS call logs and 911 audio obtained by NBC News. The calls offer a glimpse into what happens when children fall seriously ill inside a detention center that has become a flashpoint in the national immigration debate.
Most of the children were taken to a nearby community hospital, the records show. In at least three cases, children were transferred more than an hour away to a specialized pediatric hospital in San Antonio equipped to treat complex or life-threatening conditions, according to the logs.
In one case involving a 22-month-old in respiratory distress, the boy\u2019s condition was so serious, first responders wanted to fly him to the hospital by helicopter but couldn\u2019t because of bad weather, the records show. Parents of another toddler with low oxygen refused to be transported.
The records don\u2019t include information about what happened after the ambulance rides.
In a more recent case not captured in the dispatch logs, 2-month-old Juan Nicol\u00e1s was taken to a hospital last week with a respiratory illness after his mother said<\/a> he choked on his own vomit. The family was later deported to Mexico.
Do you have a story to share about immigration detention? Contact reporter Mike Hixenbaugh at <\/strong><\/em>mike.hixenbaugh@nbcuni.com<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>
Dr. Lara Jones, a pediatric critical care physician based in California, said the emergency calls point to potential missed opportunities for earlier medical intervention that might have prevented some children from being hospitalized. She and other physicians argue that holding children in a prisonlike setting is fundamentally incompatible with their health.
\u201cThere is absolutely, unequivocally no appropriate way to detain a child, period,\u201d Jones said, citing studies<\/a> showing that detention is associated with serious health consequences for children. \u201cIt is causing physical, mental, measurable, studied harm. And there is no context in which that\u2019s justified.\u201d
On Thursday, Jones and a group of physicians sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem<\/a> and congressional leaders calling on the administration to free every child held at Dilley.
The release of the 911 calls and doctors\u2019 warning comes amid broader criticism of Dilley<\/a>, where the Department of Homeland Security has sent hundreds of children with their parents since last spring as part of the Trump administration\u2019s expanding immigration crackdown. Lawyers, human rights advocates and families held at the facility have described contaminated food, inadequate schooling and barriers to timely medical care.
In a statement to NBC News, Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, which operates Dilley under a federal contract, said no child \u201chas been denied medical treatment or experienced a delayed medical assessment.\u201d Staff are trained to call 911 when a child\u2019s condition exceeds what can be managed on-site, Gustin said, not because of inadequate care, but out of \u201can abundance of clinical precaution.\u201d
DHS didn\u2019t respond to questions about the emergency calls.
This week, the agency published a statement<\/a> it said was \u201ccorrecting the record\u201d on what it called \u201cmainstream media lies\u201d about conditions at Dilley, asserting that parents and children \u201care housed in facilities that provide for their safety, security and medical needs.\u201d The agency said families have access to a full medical staff, including a pediatrician, and described the care provided as \u201cthe best healthcare\u201d some detainees have received \u201cin their entire lives.\u201d
Kheilin Valero Marcano\u2019s account paints a different picture.
By mid-January, Valero Marcano knew something was seriously wrong with her daughter, Amalia. In the month since federal officers arrested the family of asylum-seekers during an immigration check-in in El Paso, Texas, and transferred them to Dilley, the 17-month-old\u2019s health had steadily declined.
For weeks, according to Valero Marcano and a habeas corpus petition<\/a> seeking the family\u2019s release, Amalia struggled with worsening respiratory symptoms. It began with a fever, then a cough that wouldn\u2019t ease. Her nose clogged with thick mucus. Her breathing grew strained and wheezy. Echoing complaints from other families<\/a>, Valero Marcano said her daughter\u2019s care was complicated by a policy at Dilley that requires families to line up outside \u2014 sometimes for hours in freezing temperatures or rain \u2014 for each dose of medicine.
They stood in line three times a day, she said \u2014 in the morning, after lunch and again in the evening \u2014 for pain medicine and antibiotics. On blistering cold days, they wrapped Amalia in a blanket, trying to keep her warm.
\u201cMany times I had to take the girl with a fever,\u201d Valero Marcano said in Spanish this week in an interview with NBC News.
Amalia didn\u2019t improve. She spiraled on the evening of Jan. 18, when \u2014 according to Valero Marcano and the 911 logs \u2014 medical staff at Dilley noted dangerously low blood-oxygen levels. A nurse explained they were calling for an ambulance.
\u201cThank God,\u201d Valero Marcano remembered saying. \u201cBecause you haven\u2019t done anything.\u201d
After a brief stop at Frio Regional Hospital, Amalia and her mother were transported by ambulance to Methodist Children\u2019s Hospital in San Antonio. There, the girl was treated for more than a week for pneumonia, Covid-19, RSV and respiratory distress, according to the family, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stood guard.
After Amalia was discharged, immigration officers returned them to Dilley, where medical staff withheld the nebulizer prescribed by doctors at the hospital, claiming that it was not necessary, according to Valero Marcano and the habeas corpus petition. The family was released from detention the following week, after a lawyer filed the petition.
Valero Marcano said she was not surprised to learn that other children at Dilley had also been rushed to hospitals.
\u201cThey should change their ways,\u201d she said of the facility. \u201cAt least give medicine to the children who need it.\u201d
In a statement, DHS denied that Amalia\u2019s medication was withheld. The agency said the girl \u201cimmediately received proper medical care\u201d when she fell ill. Upon her return to Dilley, the statement said, the girl \u201cwas in the medical unit and received proper treatment and prescribed medicines.\u201d Gustin, the CoreCivic spokesperson, said detainee privacy protections prevent the company from commenting on individual medical cases.
Dr. Ashley Cozzo, a pediatrician and neonatologist based in Connecticut who also signed the letter calling for children to be released from Dilley, said Amalia\u2019s case \u2014 along with the other emergency calls \u2014 points to potential structural failures.
In pediatrics, she said, the focus is prevention: recognizing warning signs early enough to keep a child out of the emergency room. Based on firsthand accounts<\/a> and public reporting, Cozzo said she\u2019s concerned that conditions at the facility may be contributing to the spread of infectious diseases \u2014 including measles<\/a>, Covid-19 and RSV \u2014 and that once children become sick, care is not escalating quickly enough to prevent emergencies.
\u201cThose calls are pointing in the same direction,\u201d Cozzo said. \u201cA missed opportunity at early identification and appropriate intervention.\u201d
Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, based in Maryland, and author of "They Came for the Schools."
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeThe voices on the emergency calls sound calm. Matter-of-fact. Routine.\u201cFrio County 911. What is your emergency?\u201d\u201cI\u2019m calling from the Dilley immigration center in Dilley, Texas. I\u2019m calling for a little kid going through respiratory distress.\u201dThe callers \u2014 medical staff inside the remote facility that houses hundreds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}