“I’m writing this letter so that you can hear my story. I need you to help us …”
Therefore I shall speak not of “natural needs” but of the “existential limit to the satisfaction of needs”.
Agnes Heller, The Theory of Need in Marx
February began with ProPublica sharing letters written by children currently and previously detained at Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. There is no processing at Dilley, only the torture and abuse of children, children’s families, children’s communities, and therefore everyone. That was February 9, 2026. The article was entitled, ““I Have Been Here Too Long”: Read Letters from the Children Detained at ICE’s Dilley Facility.” Well, today is February 26, 2026, and ProPublica released an update, “Seized Art, Eavesdropping Guards: Parents Describe a Clampdown at Dilley Detention Center as Kids Shared Their Stories”. Dilley has tried to silence and throttle the kids by stealing their crayons, papers, pencils, artwork, all done in the name of “security”. The children just keep on writing and drawing, because they have to … because we need to hear them.
Seven-year-old Mathias Bermeo wrote: “I’m writing this letter so that you can hear my story. I need you to help us I have been detained for 23 days with my mom and my 3-year-old sister. I cry a lot I want to get out of here go back to my school they don’t treat us Well here there are many children we are kidnapped help!”
Dilley claims they are providing everyone with their “safety, security, and medical needs.”
Who do you believe? Whose version of “need” do you believe, that of a corporate spokesperson intoning the words you know they’d utter or that of a seven-year-old child who writes because he needs us to help him, his family, and community?
Nine-year-old Valentina writes, “I have been detained for a long time. My parents say it’s been 4 months but for me and my little sister Jireth it feels like a year I just want to go to the United States to be with my grandparents and finally end this nightmare that my family has had to live through, I feel like I’ve had the worst days of my life I want God to help us get out of here so we can be happy again and study together as a family. Please help us and our parents get out of here thank you.”
When you live in a nightmare, four months is a year.
I need you to help us.
They have been there too long. We have been there too long.
Thank you.
“My parents say it’s been 4 months but for me and my little sister Jireth it feels like a year …. “
(By Dan Moshenberg)
(Image Credits: ProPublica)