The National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention has launched the “Paper Dolls to Free Families” campaign to raise awareness about the ongoing detention of immigrant children and families in the U.S. The initiative comes in response to renewed family detention under the Trump administration in 2025, following its suspension under the Biden administration. The campaign highlights the inhumane conditions faced by detainees, including overcrowding, lack of nutritious food, inadequate medical care, and exposure to disease outbreaks such as measles at the Dilley Family Detention Center.
Family detention has been widely condemned for its severe psychological and physical impacts on children, including developmental delays, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and in some cases, suicidal ideation. Detained families often face extreme hardships such as insufficient access to clean water, malnutrition, and neglect of chronic and acute medical conditions, making detention a harmful and unnecessary practice.
The campaign invites people nationwide—including educators, students, religious and community groups, and even detained children—to create paper dolls decorated with messages of hope, solidarity, and love. These paper dolls will be delivered to members of Congress in March, urging lawmakers to end family detention by cutting funding for detention facilities and passing legislation such as the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.
Coalition members stress that family detention is a cruel and dehumanizing policy that fails to enhance public safety while inflicting lifelong trauma on children. Trudy Taylor Smith of the Children’s Defense Fund-Texas highlighted the urgent need to release families from Dilley and close the facility, emphasizing the heightened risks posed by the ongoing measles outbreak. Diego De La Torre of Amnesty International USA noted that detention policies are part of a broader anti-immigrant agenda and called for public action to protect vulnerable families. Hortencia Rodriguez of the Acacia Center for Justice emphasized the moral responsibility to safeguard detained children and bring an end to family detention.
The history of family detention in the U.S. dates back to the Obama administration, which ended detention at the Hutto facility but later oversaw the expansion of large-scale family detention centers such as Karnes, Dilley, and Berks. These facilities, with the capacity to detain over 3,000 people, became the largest family detention system in the country since the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Family detention policies were further expanded under the first Trump administration, temporarily halted under Biden, and then reinstated in March 2025. The “Paper Dolls to Free Families” campaign seeks to reverse this policy, advocating for an immigration system that protects children, keeps families together, and upholds human rights and dignity.
