A medically fragile infant was returned to ICE detention in Texas, where her prescribed treatments were allegedly confiscated -placing her life at extreme risk and prompting an emergency court order for release.

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A medically vulnerable infant, Baby Amalia, was returned to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Dilley, Texas, where her vital prescribed treatments were allegedly confiscated. This alleged medical neglect placed her life at extreme risk, prompting an emergency court order for her release nine days later.

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After being discharged on January 28, doctors warned that Baby Amalia remained highly vulnerable medically, prescribing daily respiratory treatments with a nebulizer, medications like albuterol, and nutritional supplements to regain lost weight. Despite these warnings and a reported measles outbreak at the Dilley facility, ICE returned the child and her mother to detention.

According to a lawsuit, center personnel confiscated the prescribed medications and medical equipment, forcing the family to wait for hours in outdoor lines to request them, without being allowed to administer the indicated treatment.

Medical specialists alerted the court that the continuous lack of access to medication put the baby at extreme risk of medical decompensation and death.

This is 18-mo-old Amalia waving to me when she was detained.

She was hospitalized with a respiratory infection while at ICE’s Dilley facility for immigrant families.

She’s one of dozens of detainees who I spoke to via video and phone calls, letters and an in-person visit. 🧵1/ pic.twitter.com/vogHJt66Ql

— Mica Rosenberg (@micarosenberg) February 9, 2026

Only after lawyers filed an emergency judicial appeal were Amalia and her family finally released on nine days after their return to detention.

The child’s parents, Kheilin Valero Marcano and Stiven Arrieta Prieto, entered the United States in 2024 from Venezuela, meanwhile their daughter was born in Mexico during their migratory journey.

Human Rights organizations and pediatric experts have repeatedly warned that conditions in family detention centers like Dilley are dangerous for young children, denouncing the lack of adequate access to potable water, food, medical care, and education, framing it within the “tough-on-migration” policy pursued by President Donald Trump’s administration.

The case adds to multiple allegations of abuse, medical neglect and human rights violations against migrants, particularly children.

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