US citizen infants: 'Where are all the kids?': questions arise over treatment of pregnant minors in Texas immigration fa

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/01/pregnant-minors-texas-ice-facility

‘Where are all the kids?’: questions arise over treatment of pregnant minors in Texas immigration facility

The Trump administration may be deporting the US citizen infants born to unaccompanied girls formerly held at the San Benito facility

Melody Schreiber
Mon 1 Jun 2026 08.00 EDT

Representative Maxine Dexter has a lot of questions. Why were all of the pregnant, unaccompanied minors in the US rounded up and sent to San Benito, a tiny town on the Texas border with Mexico? Are they given appropriate medical care, given their high-risk conditions and Texas’s abortion ban? And most importantly: where are the girls – and their infants – now?

Dexter, a Democratic congresswoman from Oregon and a former critical care physician – one of the few doctors now serving in Congress – detailed these questions in an 8 May letter to refugee and health officials after visiting the San Benito facility and, she said, being blocked from speaking with any of the children. She still hasn’t gotten answers.

In the US, the treatment of immigration detainees has raised concern over rights violations, overcrowding and a lack of medical care – situations that are not transparent even to members of Congress. Senator Andy Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey, says he was sprayed with pepper balls on Monday outside the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Delaney Hall facility, where detainees have spent days on a hunger strike over poor conditions. Health inspectors with the state of New Jersey were denied full access to the facility on Thursday, Mikie Sherrill, the state’s governor, said.

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For the unaccompanied children at the San Benito facility, there is the added stress and confusion of being pregnant and alone. The facility has housed pregnant children as young as 13; about half of the pregnancies are the result of rape.

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There are also questions about how many children are being held at the facility. One of the attorneys receiving a daily census said there were 11 children that day, but officials told Dexter there were only seven children. When Joaquin Castro, a Democratic Texas congressman, visited a few weeks before, there were 17.

“Where have all of these kids gone? Because there used to be many, many more,” Dexter asked.

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