For Olivia, a 19-year-old asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, each day in detention feels far longer than a single day should. She has been held for more than four months at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, a sprawling facility where she says time feels distorted and life has become defined by waiting.
Olivia describes her experience as an exhausting cycle of uncertainty. She says that every day feels like 48 hours, a reflection of how slowly time moves inside the center and how difficult it is to maintain a sense of normal life while in custody.
The months she has spent at Dilley have also taken a physical toll. Olivia has lost 20lbs while detained, and she wakes up every morning with a headache. Those symptoms underscore the strain that extended confinement can place on a young person already facing the stress of seeking asylum.
Her account offers a glimpse into the human cost of immigration detention, where time, health, and stability can all be affected at once. At 19, Olivia is still very young, yet she has already spent a large part of the past several months inside a detention system that leaves little room for comfort or certainty.
The Dilley Immigration Processing Center is a large facility in Texas that has held Olivia for more than four months. For someone in her position, the lack of clarity around what happens next can be as difficult as the physical conditions themselves. Olivia says she feels the nightmare is not going to end, a sentiment that reflects the emotional weight of long-term detention.
Detention can be especially hard for asylum seekers, who are often already dealing with trauma, displacement, and fear about their future. Olivia’s situation shows how prolonged confinement can deepen those pressures rather than relieve them. Instead of moving toward a clear resolution, she remains in a holding pattern that has stretched on for months.
Her experience also raises broader questions about the impact of immigration detention on health and well-being. Weight loss, persistent headaches, and the sense that time has slowed to a crawl all point to the daily burden of living in custody while waiting for an outcome that may still be far away.
For now, Olivia remains at Dilley, where the days continue to blend together. What stands out most in her account is not only the length of time she has spent there, but the way detention has altered her experience of each passing day. In her words, the nightmare feels endless.
