What to Know
A 7-year-old Gresham girl and her parents are still locked up in a family detention center in Texas more than two weeks after they were detained by immigration agents while seeking emergency medical care for the child at Adventist Health hospital in Portland.
The family, originally from Venezuela, entered the U.S. legally and has a pending asylum case. They're being held in the same Texas facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos of Minnesota was detained with his father, originally from Ecuador. The two were released Saturday night. The boy's viral bunny‑hat photo drew national attention after he was swept up.
While ordering their release, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery decried the Trump administration's "ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children."
The Gresham girl and her parents are still waiting to be released. Here's what we know:
This week is pivotal for their case
Wednesday will mark the 20th day in detention for the Gresham family. That matters because a decades-old federal policy stemming from a court settlement limits the detention of minor children to no more than 20 days. The settlement also says children must be held in safe and sanitary conditions and must be released as soon as feasible.
Diana Crespo Gonzalez, a second‑grader at Alder Elementary School in Gresham, and her father Yohendry De Jesus Crespo and mother Darianny Liseth Gonzalez de Crespo were arrested on Jan. 16 as they parked just in front of the Adventist Health emergency room.
They were there because Diana had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop – but she wasn't allowed to see a doctor. Immigration agents drove the three to Washington state then flew them to Texas to the detention center where they've been held since.
The Trump administration has tried to override the settlement by issuing a new rule last summer that would allow indefinite detention of families with children. In August, a federal court ruled the protections and 20-day limit are binding.
In a December court filing, the Trump administration revealed that immigration officials had held about 400 immigrant children for more than the 20‑day limit from August to September. They partly attributed the delays to the administration's decision to end a separate policy that had allowed expedited releases of immigrants.
Ana Linares, a close friend of the Gresham family who has been regularly in touch with them since their detention, said the mother, Darianny Liseth Gonzalez de Crespo, told her some families have been held at the detention center for more than four months.
Detention center known for inadequate medical care
The Gresham family is being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center near San Antonio, Texas – the country's largest family detention center.
The 2,400-bed facility was closed in 2024 by the Biden administration only to be reopened a year later after Donald Trump took office. More than 1,000 people are currently being held there, including babies and toddlers.
Numerous reports and court filings have detailed inadequate medical care as well as contaminated water, poor‑quality food, severely limited educational opportunities and significant psychological stress experienced by children held at Dilley.
On Saturday, the Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed two active measles infections among detainees there. In response, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has imposed a quarantine and stopped all movement inside the facility, according to Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
"Medical staff is continuing to monitor the detainees' conditions and will take appropriate and active steps to prevent further infection," McLaughlin said in a statement. "All detainees are being provided with proper medical care."
McLaughlin also said Dilley is "retrofitted for families" and all detainees are provided with three meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries as well as access to phones and "comprehensive medical care."
"This is the best healthcare than many aliens have received in their entire lives," she wrote.
The detention of Liam Conejo Ramos and his father at the Dilley center quickly became a flashpoint in the growing outrage over the administration's widening detention dragnet that has increasingly swept up large numbers of children.
Homeland Security officials didn't respond directly to questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive about the number of children in federal detention.
An analysis of ICE data by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization, concluded that ICE officers have detained at least 3,800 children, including 20 infants, since Trump took office, with more than 1,300 held for more than 20 days. The analysis goes only through mid-October before immigration detentions surged in Oregon and across the country.
They have a pending asylum case
The Crespo-Gonzalez family fled Venezuela along with nearly 8 million other Venezuelans – one of the largest displacements in Latin American history – because their country of birth was in economic collapse, with widespread food shortages and hunger, escalating violence and political repressions. (The vast majority of those who fled went to Latin American and Caribbean countries.)
In 2024, the parents and their daughter crossed Central America and Mexico by foot and bus to reach the United States, according to Linares, their friend whose family made the journey with them.
The trek included crossing the Darién Gap, Linares told The Oregonian/OregonLive. The stretch of roadless jungle on the Colombia-Panama border is notorious for its treacherous terrain and criminal gangs that target migrants on the route.
Once they made it to Mexico, both families applied for an appointment via a U.S. Customs and Border Protection mobile app, Linares said, requesting permission to present themselves at a U.S. port of entry – a legal pathway for asylum seekers to enter the country before Trump took office last year.
The two families entered via San Ysidro, California, in November 2024, Linares said, and both received a 2028 immigration court date that would allow them to plead their asylum cases. The Crespo-Gonzalez family spent their first year in Utah and moved to Portland in late October.
Officials from ICE and Customs and Border Protection didn't respond to requests for comment about why the family was detained or what their legal status is. A review of court records by The Oregonian/OregonLive turned up no criminal history in Oregon or in Utah.
Their case appears to be similar to that of Liam Conejo Ramos and his father who also have a pending asylum case.
In such cases, lawyers typically file a habeas corpus petition, which asks a court to review whether a detention is lawful and to order the person's release if not.
There's no word yet when lawyers may file a similar petition for the Gresham family. Natalie Lerner, an attorney with Innovation Law Lab who represents them, didn't immediately respond to questions about their legal case.
Legislators are advocating for their release
A group of legislators in Oregon and outside the state are pushing for the family's release. They include state Rep. Ricki Ruiz, a Democrat from Gresham who once attended the same elementary school as 7-year-old Diana and has been documenting the family's plight on his Facebook page.
Ruiz said the Gresham family shouldn't be penalized for following the rules that existed when they arrived.
"What they went through, the legal process at the time, it's not their fault that things have changed," Ruiz said. "Hopefully, they're able to have the same fate as Liam and his father."
U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, a Democrat who represents Oregon's 3rd District, is also advocating on their behalf. Her office said it has repeatedly requested medical attention and wellness checks for 7-year-old Diana, made phone calls to top immigration officials and is coordinating with the family's legal team.
On Monday, Dexter secured a privacy release form, which will allow her office to more directly advocate on the family's behalf with Homeland Security, including making inquiries about the status of the family's case and visiting the family in person at the detention center in Texas.
A similar release was instrumental in Dexter securing the release of a Honduran mother and her four U.S. citizen children. She had lived in Portland for over two decades and was detained with her children at a park on the U.S.-Cananda border last year.
Dexter said she's very concerned about the measles outbreak at Dilley and the lack of clear protocols to contain it given that the disease is extremely contagious, especially in closed, crowded spaces. She said she's planning to fly to Texas this week and visit the Gresham family on Friday.
"As a physician and with my constituents detained with an active measles outbreak, I need to do everything I can to make sure that they're safe," Dexter told The Oregonian/OregonLive, adding that holding children is "immorality to a level that is disgusting" and Dilley should be shut down.
Dexter said she's also in touch with other Oregon legislators, including Ruiz, U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to work on legislative letters and make calls to put pressure on the Trump administration to release the Crespo-Gonzalezes.
7-year-old Diana is losing weight
Detention has been stressful for the family, said Linares, the family friend who has spoken with the couple multiple times since their arrest, including most recently on Monday.
Darianny Liseth Gonzalez de Crespo told her that she and her daughter have not seen her husband for several days and their movement at Dilley has been restricted, Linares said. The family doesn't have access to the news and wasn't informed about the measles outbreak at the center, Linares said.
The mother also told Linares that she's suffering from severe insomnia due to anxiety and that 7-year-old Diana isn't eating much other than bread and is losing weight because the food at the detention facility is so bland. The family also has to buy bottled water because the water that's available isn't adequate to drink, Linares said.
Linares said the girl keeps asking her mother, "When are we going home?"
A fundraising campaign for the family has collected more than $56,000 as of Tuesday to cover lawyer fees and other expenses.
Gosia Wozniacka; oregonlive.com; (TNS) | ©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
