Fear and broken families inside a Texas ICE detention centre

Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, migrant arrests have surged in the United States. More than 610,000 people have passed through detention centres run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal immigration agency in under two years. The pace only continues to accelerate: in August 2026, nearly 51,000 arrests were made in a single month – a record for Trump’s second term. Who are the people being held in these centres? What are their living conditions like? And how is Trump’s mass deportation policy upending the lives of families settled in the United States? In this report, Valérie Defert and Pierrick Laurent investigate the issue in Texas – the heart of the new US immigration detention system. CoreCivic © Pierrick Leurent In Texas, a state where a significant portion of the detention system is concentrated, our reporters spent several weeks investigating what happens after an ICE arrest. They went to Diley, just south of San Antonio, where the country’s largest family detention centre is located. It holds up to 2,400 people – both parents and children. ICE bars journalists from entering the facility. Since Donald Trump returned to power...