Journalist Jacob Soboroff kicked off his new MS NOW show with a two-part report on the Trump administration’s immigrant “prison for children” in Texas currently housing some 93 children.

Soboroff took over Ali Velshi’s 11 a.m. Saturday time slot as Velshi moved to 11 p.m. weekdays.

“Foul smelling water, rocks for toys, and living with untreated illnesses for days. Those are just some of the conditions that families say they are forced to endure at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in south Texas,” Soboroff began. “And let me be clear about something: This is a prison for families in the United States of America, a prison for children and their parents who have not committed a crime except for wanting a life in America, locked up for months at a time.”

Soboroff interviewed a young family who fled Russia over the war with Ukraine, and requested asylum at a port of entry in California.

The mother, father, and one-year-old child, who turned two in custody, spent four months inside Dilley before being released under supervision.

“It was a so-called place for children. That’s no place for families or children,” the father told Soboroff.

“It’s crazy to hold your son like this and look at this beautiful child in the face and think that for 118 days, the three of you were locked up in a prison for families in the United States. I cannot imagine what it was like for you,” Soboroff said. “It’s true that when you wanted to give him toys, you made him toys out of rocks?”

“Yes. The only things he had to play with in there were rocks, sticks and sand,” the mother answered.

The father added that the family was threatened when they asked for better food for their child.

An ICE officer told them, “If we kept complaining and asking for food, especially if we complained in front of other people, then they would separate us, put me in solitary confinement and send my wife to another state, and send our child to a foster family,” according to the father.

“The detention of migrant families, including children, is not unique to this administration,” Soboroff continued. “But under Trump 2.0, the number has risen sharply. According to data analyzed by MS NOW and The Marshall Project, at least 500 children three and younger have been detained by ICE since Trump returned to office in 2025. In fact, between last March and the most recent date with available data, not a single day has gone by without any babies or toddlers in detention.”

Children’s rights attorney Leecia Welch told Soboroff, “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this is child abuse, especially when you combine the conditions with the length of stay.”

She added, “I think that children are being harmed purposefully. I don’t think it’s incidental. I think that this sort of cruelty is part of the system that has been created.”

When asked for comment, the Department of Homeland Security provided statements “dismissing the broader claims against Dilley as media lies and saying conditions are safe, humane, and family friendly,” Soboroff said.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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