{"id":204957,"date":"2026-03-22T07:25:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ms-rachel-aims-to-help-close-dilley-ice-facility-after-speaking-with-kids-in-detention-there-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T07:25:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:25:31","slug":"ms-rachel-aims-to-help-close-dilley-ice-facility-after-speaking-with-kids-in-detention-there-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ms-rachel-aims-to-help-close-dilley-ice-facility-after-speaking-with-kids-in-detention-there-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ms. Rachel aims to help 'close Dilley' ICE facility after speaking with kids in detention there – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
The boy in the grainy video feed sounded desperate.
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be here anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing is good here.\u201d
Since early March, 9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez had been held with his parents at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, where children have complained of limited education, lights that never turn off and moldy food. Now he was on a video call with someone who said she wanted to help: Ms. Rachel.
Wearing her signature pink headband, the popular children\u2019s entertainer<\/a> leaned toward the screen, trying to comfort the boy.
\u201cOh, I\u2019m so sorry,\u201d she said in a warm, high-pitched voice familiar to millions of children and parents. \u201cA lot of people want to try to help.\u201d
Deiver told her he missed his friends and that the food at Dilley made his stomach hurt. But that wasn\u2019t what worried him most. Before he was detained, he had won his school spelling bee and placed third at regionals, earning a spot at New Mexico\u2019s state competition in May.
\u201cI want to leave and go to the spelling bee,\u201d he said.
Ms. Rachel tried to reassure him.
\u201cYou have a real gift for spelling. You\u2019re so smart.\u201d
Then her smile faltered.
\u201cIt was unbelievably surreal to see this sweet little face and feel like I was on a call with somebody who\u2019s in jail,\u201d Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, told NBC News in an exclusive interview this week. \u201cIt broke me, and it was something I never thought I\u2019d encounter in life.\u201d
Like many Americans, Accurso said she first became aware of the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, in January, after federal immigration agents detained the father of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in Minneapolis and sent them both to the remote, prisonlike facility. A photograph of the child \u2014 wearing a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack \u2014 spread widely online, drawing national attention to the center and the treatment of families held there. They were eventually released but the family\u2019s asylum claim was denied this week<\/a>.
In the first year of its expanded immigration crackdown, the Trump administration placed more than 2,300 children into detention with their parents, with the overwhelming majority held at Dilley, according to figures provided by court-appointed monitors. Many have been held for several weeks or months<\/a>.
During that time, Accurso \u2014 whose educational videos for babies and toddlers have made her one of the nation\u2019s most recognizable kids\u2019 entertainers \u2014 has become an increasingly prominent voice speaking out on behalf of vulnerable children. She has drawn attention to the plight of children in war-torn Gaza, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars and drawing backlash from critics who have accused her of picking sides in global conflicts.
She has repeatedly defended her advocacy under a simple mantra: \u201cI see all children as precious and equal.\u201d
After her video call last week with Deiver and another boy held at Dilley, Accurso told NBC News she is now embarking on a new mission closer to home: working with lawyers and immigration rights activists \u201cto close Dilley and make sure that kids and their parents are back in their communities where they belong.\u201d
Parents and immigration lawyers have described children<\/a> there losing weight after finding worms in their food<\/a>, growing anxious as guards patrol and standing in line for hours<\/a> for single doses of medicine. Some have suffered medical emergencies<\/a> while detained.
About 50 children remained at Dilley this week, down from about 500 in January, The New York Times reported<\/a> Friday based on a review of government figures and advocacy group estimates. Some of the families were released in the U.S.; others were deported. It\u2019s unclear what led to the sharp decline, but it follows months of pressure from human rights advocates, Democratic members of Congress and immigration lawyers.
The Department of Homeland Security didn\u2019t answer questions about the families Accurso met over video. The agency has disputed reports of poor conditions as \u201cmainstream media lies<\/a>,\u201d saying families at Dilley are provided comprehensive care in a facility \u201cpurpose-built\u201d for their needs.
The more Accurso read about Dilley after Liam’s detention, she said, the more unsettled she became. Then, last week, she got a chance to hear directly from children held there.
Journalist Lidia Terrazas, who has spent months reporting on conditions inside Dilley for the Spanish-language network N+ Univision<\/a>, set up the video call.
Before chatting with Deiver, Accurso spoke to Gael, a 5-year-old with significant developmental delays. The boy, who is nonverbal, was in the process of being assessed for autism when he and his parents were detained in El Paso at a routine immigration check-in, according to the family\u2019s lawyer, Elora Mukherjee. Like Deiver\u2019s family, Gael\u2019s parents fled Colombia, have pending asylum claims and no criminal history in the U.S., and had been working and living in the country for years before their arrests, the families\u2019 lawyers said.
Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia Law School and the director of its Immigrants\u2019 Rights Clinic, said Gael has a history of severe constipation that had been managed at home with a specialized diet, including fresh fruit and soups. In detention, she said, his condition spiraled.
In a brief video interview on Friday, Gael\u2019s parents, Nelsy and Leonardo, told NBC News their son\u2019s condition had continued to deteriorate in detention, both physically and emotionally. They asked to be identified only by their first names, fearing retaliation should they be deported to Colombia.
\u201cThis is not a place for him because he needs special care,\u201d Leonardo said, as Gael wandered around the bare, gray meeting room. \u201cNo human being should ever go through this.\u201d
On Accurso\u2019s call with her, Gael\u2019s mother said her son had not been able to poop in nine days and was struggling to eat, gagging when he tried. The facility had been treating him with laxatives and later an enema, but his condition hadn\u2019t significantly improved, his mother said. His stomach was visibly distended, Accurso said, leaving her \u201cincredibly worried.\u201d
\u201cImagine if your child hadn\u2019t pooped in nine days,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is not normal. This is an important medical situation.\u201d
As his mother spoke, Accurso slipped into character and tried to engage him \u2014 singing \u201cWheels on the Bus,\u201d holding up a toy and talking to him about his love of trains \u2014 but he appeared restless and overwhelmed, she said.
Amid his confusion and discomfort, Gael has grown increasingly distressed at Dilley, Mukherjee said, at times hitting himself \u2014 behavior his parents had not previously seen.
\u201cTreating a child this way is a crime,\u201d Accurso told NBC News. \u201cIt\u2019s neglect and child abuse.\u201d
Accurso said she was no less concerned about Deiver.
In their brief conversation, he moved quickly past the conditions inside the facility to what he was missing outside it \u2014 his classmates, his gifted and talented courses and, most of all, the spelling bee he had been preparing for.
\u201cHe\u2019s so proud,\u201d Accurso said.
The juxtaposition, she said, was difficult to process: a child talking about his love of pizza and school one moment, then asking for help getting out of a federal detention center the next.
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get a child out of a jail to do a spelling bee,\u201d she said. \u201cI just never thought those words would go together.\u201d
Accurso recalled winning her own second-grade classroom spelling bee with a lucky guess on the word \u201cchocolate\u201d \u2014 a small, long-ago victory she still remembers in vivid detail.
Moments like that are more than milestones, said Accurso, who has master\u2019s degrees in music education and early childhood development. They shape how children see themselves \u2014 their confidence, their sense of belonging, their sense of what comes next.
Taking those kinds of opportunities away from a child, she said, \u201cis cruelty.\u201d
After learning about Dilley, Accurso said she initially hesitated over how much to speak out publicly.
Her advocacy for children in Gaza had led to a torrent of criticism from right-wing groups that accused her of antisemitism for centering Palestinian children rather than Israelis. Accurso has pushed back on those claims, noting that she advocates for children suffering on both sides of the conflict. The controversy has led to threats against her family, she said, and she worried that speaking out about ICE detention might inflame the situation.
But she kept coming back to the example set by Fred Rogers, the late children\u2019s television icon she considers her hero, who used his platform to speak out on behalf of children.
Ultimately, she said, the decision felt clear.
And unlike in the past, when she painstakingly sought to frame her activism as apolitical, Accurso said she is ready to embrace the label.
\u201cI am political,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s political to believe that children are worthy of love and care, and that every child is equal, and that our care shouldn\u2019t stop at what we look like, our family, at our religion, at a border.\u201d
If being political is what it takes to bring Gael home, or to get Deiver to his spelling bee, Accurso said, then her conscience leaves her no other choice.
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

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeThe boy in the grainy video feed sounded desperate.\u201cI don\u2019t want to be here anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing is good here.\u201dSince early March, 9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez had been held with his parents at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, where children have complained of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204958,"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-204957","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\/204957","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=204957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}