A mother and her five children are hoping a federal judge releases them from immigration detention after being locked up for almost a year, an extraordinary length of time in custody for children.

They are the family of Mohamed Soliman, an Egyptian national accused of assembling Molotov cocktails last year and firebombing a group in Boulder, Colo., gathered to show support for Israeli hostages.

A woman died and 12 others were injured in what the U.S. government called a terrorist attack.

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Soliman was immediately arrested and the Department of Homeland Security also took his wife and children, who had been living in Colorado Springs, into custody. They have now filed another request in federal court to be released on bond.

Hayam El Gamal and her children are Egyptian citizens who DHS says are in the country illegally after overstaying a tourist visa in 2023. The family filed an asylum claim before their visa expired, according to their attorney.

Scripps News obtained letters the children have written to Congress, detailing their 10-month ordeal held at the Dilley immigration detention center in Texas.

The youngest of the children are 5-year-old twins, and their letters are written in colored pencil.

When we will we go home? One of the children wrote on a drawing of the family standing under birds and clouds in the sky.

A picture by the other 5-year-old says, I want to go home ... I want to go to school ... I miss my bear.

The oldest child, 18-year-old Habiba Soliman, graduated from high school weeks before her arrest.

I would have never expected to go from a girl who was doing everything to achieve her dream to a girl that had her life destroyed just because of her father, she writes in a letter.

She spoke to Scripps News on the phone from inside Dilley, where she has been separated from the rest of her family.

It is too much, she said. I feel like I'm living in a nightmare and it just can't be true.

A letter from her 9-year-old sister says, Every day we see people leave. But us, no. I want to get out and eat pizza and bananas.

Her 16-year-old brother penned his own letter.

This prolonged detention has and continues to destroy our lives, he said, sharing details about delayed treatment for appendicitis.

I cried and begged (a nurse) to help me ... I then fell to my hands and knees and threw up ... It was only then that I was taken seriously and transferred to a nearby ER.

The familys attorney said one of the five-year-olds has 13 untreated cavities.

This family is being systematically denied medical attention, Eric Lee said. There's no question that this family has been specifically targeted. The idea that a five- year-old can be detained because they're suspected of assisting in a terrorist attack is absurd.

Dilley is owned and operated by the CoreCivic company under contract with the U.S. government. DHS and CoreCivic dispute all claims about mistreatment and lack of or delayed care at the detention center.

In a statement, DHS says the El Gamals are in custody while the government investigates to what extent the family knew about this heinous attack in Colorado.

However, that contradicts what court records reviewed by Scripps News show. An FBI agent and a federal judge both found the family had no involvement or awareness of the plot.

"We, unfortunately, happen to be the family of somebody who committed a criminal act, Habiba Soliman said. I know what he did is awful. We didn't know anything. Our whole life (was) destroyed in seconds.

The family hopes to return to Colorado Springs. Voluntarily going to Egypt is not an option, Lee said.

"The U.S. government has called them terrorists before the eyes of the world, Lee said. We know that when they go back to Egypt, they're on a list of people who are going to be arrested. They're going to get locked up in a dungeon in Egypt.

The federal limit on children in U.S. detention is generally 20 days. The El Gamal children have been locked up at Dilley for more than 300 days.

This place broke something in us, Habiba Soliman wrote in her letter, something that I dont know if we will ever be able to fix.

Parents and children held for long stretches in ICE custody at the nations only family immigration detention center are again speaking out about medical care and other conditions at the Texas lockup run by the for-profit company CoreCivic.

Legal aid groups collected oral testimonials from detainees during visits in recent weeks to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center located about an hour south of San Antonio. The sworn declarations were filed in federal court March 20 as part of ongoing litigation challenging the length of detention for immigrant children.

Scripps News reviewed the testimonials as part of an ongoing investigation called ICE Inc. that explores how private companies are profiting off the Trump administrations push to hold more immigrants in detention.

This place has weakened us physically and mentally and it is hard to keep going, a mother says who had been held for 113 days at Dilley with her 9-year-old daughter. I know my daughter and I will need a lot of mental health support when we get out of here.

The mother says she has filed grievances about medical neglect, lack of education and support and the guards bad treatment of children.

They listen to the grievance and say they will do something, but then they dont, the mothers declaration says.

Her daughter has twice fainted from hunger because allergies prevent her from eating much of the food, she says.

CoreCivic has consistently disputed all claims about mistreatment and lack of care for detainees. A spokesman pointed Scripps News to a company statement posted online.

Nothing matters more toCoreCivicthan the health and safety of the people in our care, the statement says, referencing recurring inaccurate and misleading claims about Dilley.

Those statements, and a March 13 report filed by the Trump administration that found no major problems at Dilley, contrast with the vivid descriptions of poor conditions described in the declarations.

In one testimonial a detained mother says her 2-year-old suffered from an unresolved tooth infection for three weeks, leading to fever.

She looks thinner, is more tired, and is always lying down, the mother says. She can barely eat anything due to pain.

Another mother says her 9-year-old daughter with autism is not receiving any of her regular medicine at Dilley.

Her condition has gotten worse now that shes detained, the mother says.

The girl is among many children confined at Dilley who have expressed their feelings through drawings.

Parents have accused Dilley guards of destroying their childrens artwork.

My older daughter started getting upset ... the officer turned to her, held it up, ripped it up and laughed in her face, a mother says in a sworn statement.

CoreCivic says claims about staff confiscating or destroying childrens artwork are not true.

The court filings show that parents too are sick. A 32-weeks pregnant woman, detained with her 3-year-old daughter, says her Hepatitis B is going untreated.

I am in agony, I am exhausted, she says.

Detained children also share their own stories of suffering in the new court filings.

A 16-year-old who lived in Texas nine years before being sent to Dilley says, I am having panic attacks. I am so worried about missing three months of my junior year.

A 13-year-old from Chicago speaks about spending the holidays at Dilley.

"ICE detained me with my mom and separated me from my dad, the child says. I feel so sad that I had to spend Christmas and New Years without my dad. Every day that I remain here is destroying my hope for my life.

Child welfare experts have warned about the trauma caused by confinement.

The long-standing Flores federal court ruling says children in most cases should not stay in immigration detention more than 20 days.

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But as Scripps News has been reporting in the ICE Inc. investigation, hundreds of children have been held far longer than 20 days at Dilley even as the detained population has dropped significantly in recent weeks amid scrutiny from news media and lawmakers. Neither DHS nor ICE has explained the reason for the falling numbers.

The most recent tally shows 20 children in custody in March for 50 days and counting.

DHS declined to answer a list of questions from Scripps News and sent an email that said in part, This facility is purpose-built to ensure that families in detention are comfortable and have all of their needs cared for all at the taxpayers expense.

Mishan Wroe, directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, visited families at Dilley earlier this month during the effort to compile the declarations.

"The kids that I met with are incredibly resilient and brave and really frustrated and struggling with the situation that they face," she said. The juxtaposition of what was their life and what is now their life is really severe and difficult to deal with.

The court filings are an effort to convince a judge that the government is holding kids longer than necessary. They argue the families should be released back to their homes in the U.S. while their deportation proceedings play out.

Dramatic air traffic control audio is shedding new light on a deadly crash at New Yorks LaGuardia Airport, where a fire truck responding to an emergency was struck by a landing plane.

The fire truck had been dispatched to assist a United Airlines flight preparing to depart for Chicago. That aircraft aborted two takeoff attempts first due to an anti-ice issue and then because of a strong odor in the cabin.

Crew members reported the odor was making some flight attendants feel sick. The plane declared an emergency while attempting to return to the gate and, at one point, made a wrong turn on the taxiway, delaying its return to the ramp.

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As part of that response, a Port Authority fire truck was sent to the aircraft and requested permission to cross an active runway.

In audio from the air traffic control tower, those in the fire truck are heard asking for clearance.

Truck 1 and company, LaGuardia tower, requesting to cross Runway 4 at Delta, a firefighter says.

Truck 1 and company, cross Runway 4 at Delta, an air traffic controller responds.

Seconds later, the controller urgently intervenes: Stop, Truck 1, stop.

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The transmission captures the moments just before an Air Canada regional jet, landing around 11:40 p.m., struck the fire truck. Both the pilot and co-pilot were killed. Numerous others were injured.

In the aftermath, the controller can be heard closing the airport: LaGuardia Airport is closed at this time. No aircraft in or out.

The National Transportation Safety Board, along with Canadian investigators, is examining the sequence of events, including why the fire truck was cleared to cross the runway and whether the approaching aircraft was visible.

Medical emergencies involving children and pregnant women held at a for-profit immigration detention center in Texas occur multiple times a month, according to 911 recordings and documents obtained by the Scripps News investigative team.

The calls to 911 are from staff at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, that opened in March of 2025.

"He's a six year old male," a man tells a dispatcher in one call about a child with a fever.

"Sixty?" the dispatcher says.

"Six-year-old," the person responds.

Some of the calls are for babies detained at Dilley, including a request for an ambulance for a two-month-old named Juan Nicolas. He was taken to a local emergency room with breathing difficulties.

Another call went out for medics to help a one-year-old struggling to breathe.

A third emergency call references a child with dangerously low oxygen levels.

"I'm calling because we have a little boy in respiratory distress," someone on the line with 911 says. "He needs to be sent out."

Emergency call logs obtained from Frio County, Texas, show the boy's condition was so severe that first responders wanted to fly him to the hospital by helicopter but couldn't because of bad weather.

The call logs also show two ambulance requests for pregnant women at Dilley.

"I have a patient that's three months pregnant," a caller says in one 911 recording. "She fainted and is being evaluated."

The other call was for a pregnant woman who had a seizure.

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Kristin Etter represents some of the families at Dilley and is director of policy and legal services at the Texas Immigration Law Council.

"They're in very large rooms with like 60 people in a room," Etters said. "You can see what a desolate, bleak, and dystopian place it really is."

ICE arrested Jarson Herrera and Kelly Vargas, detaining them at Dilley with their six-year-old daughter Maria Paula, who developed a bad cough while detained.

"The only thing they did was give her allergy medicine," Vargas said. "And the three of us had stomach problems caused by the food and the water."

Maria Paula was at Dilley for two months despite a longstanding federal court ruling that says children should not be held in detention for more than 72 hours.

"It's very sad to see how skinny she got," Vargas said. "They threw her out of there vomiting, because my daughter had been vomiting for three days."

The family was deported back to Colombia.

The Department of Homeland Security says any claim about inhumane conditions at ICE detention centers is false.

CoreCivic, the for-profit company that owns and operates Dilley, says the health of detainees is a priority.

A company website says there are 120 medical professionals on site.

MORE ON IMMIGRATION DETENTION | ICE contracts fuel revenue surge for owners of for-profit immigration detention centers

Immigration and Customs Enforcement now says use of force was a factor in the death of an immigrant detainee.

Geraldo Lunas Campos died in January at the Camp East Montana for-profit detention center in El Paso, Texas.

The Department of Homeland Security said he died after attempting suicide, but a Scripps News investigation revealed Lunas Campos was in handcuffs moments before his death.

RELATED STORY | Photos and 911 calls deepen mystery of immigrant's sudden death in ICE custody

A county autopsy said the death was a result of homicide.

Now, a new document quietly posted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Lunas Campos died after a spontaneous use of force to prevent him from harming himself.

The statement does not elaborate on who exerted force against Lunas Campos. Scripps News has reached out to officials for more details.

The Camp East Montana detention center is the largest for-profit immigration lockup in the country and relies on the use of private security guards.

RELATED STORY | 27-year-old man from Guatemala dies in ICE custody, DHS says

The first year of President Trump's push to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants was a financial boon for two companies that own and operate private detention centers.

CoreCivic and The GEO Group both reported their year-end earnings for 2025.

Each company reported seeing a boost in revenue of more than 13 percent, both making more than $2 billion.

GEO Group's executive chairman George Zoley called 2025 the "most successful year for new business wins in our company's history."

The two companies opened nine new detention centers across the country under contracts with ICE, adding thousands more beds able to hold arrested immigrants who are awaiting deportation hearings.

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The Scripps News ICE Inc. series of investigative reports has uncovered complaints about inadequate medical care, understaffing, and overcrowding at some for-profit detention centers. Two cases of measles were reported at a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, owned and operated by CoreCivic. During their earnings calls, company leaders did not address reports of problems at their lockups but said they take seriously the wellbeing of those in their care.

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CoreCivic and The GEO Group see room to grow in 2026 by bringing more idled detention centers online and by possibly converting warehouses owned by ICE into more facilities able to hold migrants. A record 70,000 immigrants are in detention, a number the Trump Administration would like to increase to 100,000.

The Trump administration's initial statements defending violence from immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis often contradict what anyone can see with their own eyes.

Videos and court testimony, time and again, point to a pattern of government deception.

"Sickening lies" is how the parents of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti described comments the day their son was killed by Border Patrol agents after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti "brandished" his gun, even as video showed the weapon remained holstered until an agent removed it from Pretti's waist.

"This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that," Noem had said during a weekend news conference.

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"This looks like a situation where an individual came to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement," she continued.

In a social media post, Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller called Pretti a "would-be assassin."

There is no evidence showing any of those statements to be true.

Scripps News asked DHS whether Noem still stands by her early comments blaming Pretti for his own death.

A DHS spokesperson, who declined to be identified, did not answer directly, but said, "The initial statement was based on reports from CBP from a very chaotic scene on the ground. That's precisely why an investigation is underway and DHS will let the facts lead the investigation."

It was not the first time that video has disputed what government officials were saying about events in Minneapolis.

Before Pretti's death, Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent.

President Donald Trump posted that she "violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ice officer."

Noem called Good a "domestic terrorist" who had "weaponized her vehicle."

But video shows Good turning away from the agent as the first shot was fired. The dispute over her intent and the agent's decision to kill her may never be resolved because the federal government hasn't committed to carrying out a full investigation.

And on Jan. 13, a woman driving down a street where a protest had broken out was violently dragged from her car by masked federal officers.

The official DHS version of events claimed the woman, seen on the video attempting to drive away, had ignored law enforcement demands to leave the scene and was arrested for obstruction.

According to her lawyer, and despite being accused of being a "violent agitator," the woman, Aliya Rahman, was never charged with anything.

Then on Jan. 20, 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken from a running car in his driveway by ICE agents as he was coming home from preschool. DHS said his father, who ICE was trying to catch, had "abandoned the boy,"

School officials said the agents used the boy "as bait" to try to get the family to open the door of the house and refused to leave the child with another adult while they went after the father.

Vice President J.D. Vance told a different story.

"I do a little bit more follow-up research, and what I find is that the 5-year-old was not arrested, that his dad was an illegal alien, and when they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran," Vance said. "Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death?"

Ramos and his father, who entered the U.S. legally to apply for asylum, were swiftly taken to an ICE holding facility in Dilley, Texas. A judge has prohibited ICE from deporting them.

Liam's mother has said her son appears to be sick from the food there.

Democrats are demanding that both the father and his son be released so they can pursue their asylum claim.

All these cases raise a central question. If the government has been shown to be deceptive after incidents where there is plenty of visual evidence and multiple eyewitness accounts, as with the killings of Good and Pretti, why should the American people believe their statements on matters that are murkier?

The Trump administration has offered open-ended contracts to 13 private companies for help verifying where suspected undocumented immigrants live and work.

A Scripps News investigation found that some of the companies have no record of previously doing business with the government. Some also list post office boxes or residences as their main office addresses, raising questions about their qualifications to handle sensitive personal data and to conduct in-person surveillance of migrants.

Just before Christmas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded contracts potentially worth a combined $1.2 billion for the companies to provide "skip tracing services nationwide" during the next two years, according to federal contracting records reviewed by the Scripps News investigative team. The records show that most of the companies have not yet received any payments.

The Department of Homeland Security published a document in October saying ICE had an immediate need for skip tracing, a process described as using government data, the web, and physical surveillance to confirm the location of targeted immigrants.

The companies would be expected to send ICE a collection of photos and documents confirming the person's residence and/or place of employment.

RELATED STORY | As ICE puts immigrants in 'Lone Star Lockup,' companies quietly cash in

The contractors also may be asked to deliver official government documents to persons of interest, the document states. There is the possibility of monetary bonuses. The more undocumented immigrants they find, the more money the businesses can make.

The companies are essentially ICE bounty hunters, said Sharon Bradford Franklin, former chairwoman of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

"It's the same kind of incentive situation," Bradford Franklin said.

Some of the awarded contractors are linked to large corporations, like a company run by the GEO Group, which operates private ICE detention centers for the government.

Other grant recipients are much smaller companies, still able to make millions of dollars from the contract.

A business named Fraud Inc. is run out of an apartment in Conroe, Texas. Reached by phone, the company's president said he runs the business from home. He said that his aim is to find as many undocumented immigrants as possible to take advantage of the bonuses offered by the government.

Fraud Inc. could earn more than $25 million, according to contracting records.

Gravitas Professional Services LLC is an Ohio company that lists a post office box as its main address.

RELATED STORY | Private prisons see record revenue growth under Trump administration's immigration surge

YouTube videos show Gravitas had been focused on much smaller jobs, including tracking down a client's biological father and catching people allegedly committing workers' compensation fraud.

"Gravitas is mostly in the insurance world but we've been known to locate people through infidelity and corporate investigations," owner Adam Visnic says in one video posted to YouTube.

The business could earn over $32 million searching for immigrants.

A.I. Solutions 87 is an LLC with an address of a single-family home in Wisconsin. The LLC could make more than $48 million dollars through its contract.

ICE did not respond to Scripps News' questions about how the agency picked the entities that won contracts.

The companies are required to follow federal, state and local laws, but because the contracts themselves aren't public, there are no published details about rules to protect government data and civil rights.

"When the government outsources this type of surveillance, it increases the risk of abuse," Bradford Franklin said. "There is even less ability to have oversight. There are rules that simply don't apply."