FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 02, 2026
CONTACT: Daniela Perez, [email protected]
READ THEM HOME: National Initiative Launches in Dilley to Demand an End to Family Detention
Launching on International Children’s Book Day, READ THEM HOME: End Family Detention brings together parents, children, librarians, child care workers, authors, educators, labor and community leaders, advocates, and other supporters in Dilley and beyond to spotlight families harmed by detention and call for an end to family detention.
DILLEY — On International Children’s Book Day, a coalition of national leaders and organizations will gather in Dilley, Texas, to launch READ THEM HOME: End Family Detention, a new national initiative demanding an end to family detention and freedom for children and families seeking safety. The initiative begins today with a multi-hour read-a-thon in Dilley, where parents, children, librarians, child care workers, authors, educators, labor and community leaders, advocates, and other supporters will read beloved children’s books and show solidarity to families, including young children, being held at the South Texas Family Residential Center, also known as the Dilley ICE Detention Center.
Led by the 10 Steps Campaign, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, SEIU, FWD.us, Community Change, National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention , Little Lobbyists, MomsRising, and San Antonio Stands, the initiative uses children’s books as a public act of care, witness, and resistance, calling for the end of family detention in Dilley and beyond. The initiative will also launch a 30-day virtual reading challenge for supporters nationwide.
As ProPublica has reported, more than 11,000 parents of U.S. citizen children have been detained under the current administration, with ICE holding an average of 170 children each day. Many of those detained are families who had been living in U.S. communities for years and were taken into custody at routine ICE check-ins, bus stops, hospitals, and airports, often despite having active asylum cases, humanitarian parole, U.S. citizen relative sponsors, and no criminal record. Families at Dilley have been served food with worms and mold, placed in overcrowded bunks, and with children and parents suffering medical neglect and serious mental health harm.
Among those participating in the April 2 vigil include Stacey Abrams, former Georgia House minority leader and Lead Organizer for the 10 Steps Campaign; Jenn Stowe, Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance; Susie Jaramillo, children’s book author, president and chief creative officer of Encantos, and creator of the Emmy-nominated bilingual series Canticos; Rafael Agustín, author of the bestselling memoir Illegally Yours; Mychal “The Librarian” Threets, PBS and PBS kids resident librarian, host of the Reading Rainbow; David Bowles, South Texas author of the award-winning They Call Me Güero; Stuart Hausmann, Texas-based award-winning artist and illustrator, author of Linus; Laekan Zea Kemp, Texas based award winning author of Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet; Vicko Alvarez, illustrator and comic book artist. Child care workers and educators are also serving as featured readers throughout the vigil, with additional participants joining in person and virtually.
“Stories show us who we are, what we owe one another, and the dreams every child deserves,” said Stacey Abrams, Lead Organizer of the 10 Steps Campaign. “No child nor family should have their lives shaped by the trauma of cruel detention. We are taking action to tell the truth, honor the dignity of families, and call on Americans to remember their own childhoods and declare: family detention must end.”
“Children and families seeking safety should be met with care, not trauma, and isolation,” said Ai-jen Poo, President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “Bedtime stories remind us of every child’s right to simply be a child, and to be safe, in the comfort of their homes and communities. From the vigil in Dilley to the 30-day reading challenge across the country, this initiative is a call to show up for the children and their families, to speak out against cruelty, and demand the end of family detention for good.”
The initiative comes as advocates, workers, and families raise growing alarm about the harm family detention inflicts on children and their families, threatening their health, safety, well-being, and dignity. The vigil and 30-day reading challenge offer visible, accessible ways for educators, advocates, care workers, parents, and other supporters to take action. Throughout the 30 days ahead and beyond, participants will help build public pressure to end the detention of children and their families. READ THEM HOME: End Family Detention is grounded in the belief that every child should be free to grow up with safety, care, and innocence – and that every family deserves dignity and freedom.
Quotes from Partners:
Carmen Phillips, Minnesota Children’s Hospital, Member of SEIU:
“I am a mother, grandmother, and an assistant nurse at a children’s hospital. I know firsthand that children need care, a safe place to live, and love to be healthy and reach their full potential. When ICE came to my home state of Minnesota and took families away, including 5-year-old Liam, I was appalled. Liam was detained and sent to Dilley. That’s why I am here today. I want to make sure my voice is heard because staying silent is not an option for me. Children and their families deserve to be at home, not in detention camps.”
“As a person of color, I remember when people stood up for my rights—to have a voice, to have civil rights, and to have constitutional rights. What I am witnessing now is simply not right. I will stand up to correct this wrong. This is a human rights issue. We are all human, and those kids are human too.”
Elena Hung, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Little Lobbyists:
“Children belong at home, not in detention facilities where they are denied crayons to draw with and essential medicines they need to survive. We are here in Dilley Detention Center to let the children know we see them and we will protect them, and we are here to let Americans know that detaining children is a despicable act of cruelty and moral failure. Immigration enforcement and detention disproportionately affect disabled people, including children. The abusive and shameful conditions in detention facilities exacerbate or cause life-threatening and long-term mental and physical health consequences. A threat to any child’s health, well-being, future, and access to joy is a threat to all children. Little Lobbyists demand an immediate end to family detention.”
Evelyn DeJesus, Executive Vice President, American Federation of Teachers (AFT):
“As a mother and abuela, it pains me to see our babies in cages. As educators, we know every child has a fundamental right to learn, to feel safe, and to belong, and we see every day what children need to thrive: stability, safety, and the freedom to learn. Detention does the opposite. It robs children of their education, harms their well-being, and inflicts lasting trauma. Children should be in classrooms, not cages and we will keep organizing and fighting until every child is home.”
Kristin Kumpf, Coordinator, the National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention:
“Childhood should be marked by joy, play, learning, and safety — not by the immigration detention system where lives are in jeopardy in ICE custody. Childhood is a fleeting period of time that has a tremendous impact on setting the foundation for a person’s lifelong well-being – it must be protected. The Dilley detention center must be shut down, and family detention must permanently end.”
Linda Stone, Senior Director, MomsRising Together:
“Detaining immigrant children and families is cruel, unjustified, and deeply damaging. There is a huge body of evidence showing that it causes deep, lasting trauma to children while doing nothing to make our communities safer. Family detention centers like the one in Dilley have an abysmal record of failing to provide physical and mental health care and adequate food and nutrition, while utilizing abusive tactics, including threats to separate families if terrified children are not compliant. The Trump Administration’s mass deportation agenda is being enacted without mercy, and it is taking a terrible toll, not just on immigrants but on our entire country. Moms recognize immigrants as our neighbors, coworkers, and friends who strengthen our communities and are an essential part of our care workforce. We want every asylum-seeker and every immigrant family to be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect. Every child, regardless of where they were born, deserves to live in peace and security. The callous, unjust practice of detaining immigrant families must end.”
San Antonio Stands:
“For over a decade, we have watched family detention centers stain the landscape of Central and South Texas. As San Antonio residents, we have suffered a front-row seat to the neglect and abuse perpetuated by these detention centers. It is because we have borne witness that we continue to demand that family detention end.”
Todd Schulte, President, FWD.us:
“Families belong together – and to be free. Children belong in classrooms, on playgrounds, and with their friends. Today, children woke up in Dilley, a detention facility for children and families, for no other reason than to allow our tax dollars to be used to enact cruelty upon them. And then to display this cruelty to the world in the hope that other immigrant families would look to America and decide our promise to be a beacon of hope was a lie, and abandon their dreams. This unnecessary detention enriches the private companies profiting from incarcerating children and families. We stand committed and unified to highlight the horrors being done behind those walls and to bring this practice to an end. We are thankful to our partners, elected officials, and many others fighting to close this immigrant family detention center.”
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National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) is the leading voice for dignity and fairness for millions of domestic workers in the United States. Founded in 2007, NDWA works for respect, recognition and inclusion in labor protections for domestic workers, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of color. NDWA is powered by over 70 affiliate organizations and local chapters and by a growing membership base of nannies, house cleaners and care workers in over 20 states. Learn more at
www.domesticworkers.org. NDWA is a non-partisan non-profit organization that does not endorse, support, or oppose any candidates for public office.
