Within days of their arrival, the parents said a comfortable facade began to crumble. They held their breath inside the smelly cafeteria and waited in long lines in the heat to get medicine for fevers or colds. Their children resisted going to school after they discovered the curriculum repeated after 20 days. During school hours, the mothers could meet with their lawyers or knit for hours. Sometimes Zumba class was offered.

The weeks felt like months, they said, and boredom and uncertainty weighed on them constantly.

A woman named Cindy who was detained at Dilley for four months before being released said her 8-year-old son Jostin refused to eat while they were there and would vomit when she tried to force him into the dining hall.

Another, Patricia, said her daughter Christy had tried to kill herself inside the facility and was put on anti-anxiety medication and sedatives. Once a bubbly teenager, Christy cried every day they were detained and suffered from dizzy spells because she also refused to eat, her mother said.

“It’s like I don’t know her anymore. She has changed so much,” Patricia said.

Kenia and Michael landed in Dilley in July 2018 after they left Honduras to get away from a man who Kenia said had started to stalk her. He physically attacked her and threatened to kill her and Michael. When she threatened to go to the police, the man told Kenia that the police were his friends.

They escaped to the United States. And though he had struggled in the months leading up to their detention at Dilley, within days of arriving at the five-acre compound southwest of San Antonio surrounded by a high concrete-and-chain-link fence, he began to unravel. He blamed Kenia for their detention but, after he saw her scolded by guards, declared that she was clearly not in charge and refused to listen to her.

“The more I would try to calm him down,” Kenia said, “the worse he would get.”

Other families were struggling, too, and the children’s outbursts seemed to trigger one another.