An Albanian man’s ache grew so insufferable, he stated, he pulled out his personal tooth as he languished for months in a New Mexico immigration detention heart. A Honduran mom of two stated she was hospitalized for a coronary heart downside after she was denied blood strain medicines whereas held in Florida. A Venezuelan man stated his leg grew purple and swollen from flesh-eating micro organism when staffers at a Vermont facility didn’t carry him to a scheduled physician appointment.
Tons of of detainees throughout at the least 33 states allege in federal fits that immigration detention services are failing to supply enough medical care, an investigation by KFF Well being Information and The Related Press discovered. Detainees say they didn’t get medicines on time — or in any respect — for situations together with hypertension, diabetes, melancholy, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and HIV. Requests for assist went unanswered for weeks. Blood sugars rose. Infections festered. Cancers remained untreated. Detainees collapsed and had seizures.
U.S. jails and immigration detention facilities have long struggled to satisfy the medical wants of the folks of their cost. However the system is sagging beneath an inflow of detentions since President Donald Trump returned to workplace: Greater than 75,000 immigrants had been being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as of mid-January, up from round 40,000 a 12 months earlier.
KFF Well being Information and AP analyzed 1000’s of courtroom circumstances filed since Trump’s second inauguration that use a authorized route generally known as habeas corpus to argue persons are being held illegally by ICE. The information provide a uncommon window into how these detained say, typically beneath penalty of perjury, ICE is dealing with their medical wants. Reporters additionally interviewed greater than 50 detainees, relations, and attorneys.
The investigation revealed that medical neglect is alleged throughout the sprawling detention system, together with in workplaces not designed to accommodate folks, county jails, and rapidly staged websites with nicknames equivalent to “Alligator Alcatraz.”
ICE custody is deadlier than it has been in 20 years, researchers wrote in JAMA in April. The Division of Homeland Safety reported 51 folks had died in detention because the begin of Trump’s second administration — with suicides spiking to an unprecedented number.
KFF Well being Information and AP requested DHS to answer the findings six days earlier than publication, nevertheless it didn’t present remark. The division’s appearing chief medical officer, Sean Conley, has previously said “it’s each coverage and longstanding apply for aliens to obtain well timed and applicable medical care from the second they enter ICE custody” and that the company recruits healthcare professionals to keep up excessive requirements. “That is higher, extra responsive healthcare than many aliens have ever obtained of their complete lives,” he has stated.
Particular person services and personal jail firms contracting with DHS that responded to requests for remark stated they comply with ICE requirements and detainees obtain medical care when it’s required. Some stated they had been unfamiliar with the allegations outlined in courtroom paperwork; others blamed some detainees for lapses of their medical care.
“I’ve by no means seen such disregard or medical neglect like this anyplace,” Vardan Gukasian, a political dissident and former paramedic who spent years behind bars in Armenia, wrote in a court declaration in March to contest his detention in Henderson, Nevada, because it stretched to 13 months regardless of well being issues.
Madeleine Skains, a spokesperson for the town of Henderson, stated medical care is all the time accessible on the facility and that the courtroom had not ordered adjustments to his care.
Final June, as Gukasian skilled the signs of uncontrolled hypertension — dizziness, a nosebleed, and a headache — his cellmate banged on their door for assist.
“When it didn’t arrive, the remainder of the block banged on their doorways,” he wrote. Gukasian was hospitalized that day.
‘Brazen Indifference to Actually Apparent Issues’
The administration’s mass deportation effort has swept up hundreds of thousands of people throughout routine immigration check-ins, at visitors stops, at their houses, and in hospitals.
About 70% of detainees haven’t any prison conviction. Their immigration proceedings are civil, not prison.
“I couldn’t perceive why they handled me so harshly,” stated a father of six in Georgia. He stated he was injured whereas shackled in custody when the car transporting him to an Atlanta facility jolted, throwing him out of his seat and right into a steel armrest. His wound grew to become contaminated with E. coli, he stated, as a result of he needed to sleep on a grimy concrete flooring amid leaking bathrooms.
Like different detainees interviewed, he spoke on the situation of anonymity; they stated they concern for his or her security, for the security of their households, or that talking out would jeopardize their immigration circumstances. The AP and KFF Well being Information are usually not naming anybody recognized in courtroom paperwork with out their consent.
Staffers at Stewart Detention Heart in rural Lumpkin, Georgia, didn’t adequately reply to that man’s request for medical assist, a court filing says, till he handed out and was taken to a hospital about an hour away. There, he stated, a health care provider advised him he’d narrowly escaped amputation of his left leg. Medical workers discovered no information of a case matching this description, based on Brian Todd, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, which runs the ability.
The 48-year-old, who moved to the U.S. from Guatemala greater than 20 years in the past, was launched in October and is now a authorized everlasting resident. However he’s uncertain if he’ll be capable to return to his job in building as a result of, he stated, he can not raise heavy issues resulting from his harm.
Some detainees or their attorneys stated even fundamental care was denied: gauze to guard an open foot wound, prenatal take care of a high-risk being pregnant, a pillow to ease the ache of sleeping with superior abdomen most cancers, sanitary pads for postpartum bleeding.
“I wish to imagine the federal government has the most effective curiosity of these it holds in detention for no matter time frame,” Choose Benita Pearson, a federal decide in Ohio, stated throughout a listening to in October regarding a 70-year-old who alleged the federal government misplaced her glasses throughout her arrest. “If one is unable to see as a result of lack of glasses when detained, that needs to be fastened.”
Dora Schriro, who labored for ICE and now serves as a particular adviser to the American Bar Affiliation, stated case regulation requires the federal government to deal with folks in immigration detention with the identical care it affords these in conventional jails awaiting trial. However directors are granted discretion and medical care requirements range.
Detainees are continuously moved throughout the nation, typically with out warning, interrupting therapy. A lady from El Salvador stated she missed every week of HIV medicine when she was transferred from Colorado to a county jail in Wyoming.
A Russian man wrote that, whereas detained in Texas, he noticed a gastroenterologist about his painful gallstones and scheduled an appointment with a surgeon. “Sadly, I by no means acquired to see him, resulting from my being moved round varied detention facilities.”
Advocates say that even apparent disabilities, like authorized blindness, are ignored.
A detainee who misplaced one eye and had extreme glaucoma within the different required twice-daily drops to keep up what imaginative and prescient remained. However, he stated, some days the drops by no means got here.
“Now I can solely see a bit of bit straight in entrance. It now typically seems to be like I’m seeing by way of gauze,” the person wrote in a courtroom declaration. “This makes me very afraid that one among these instances I’m going to open my eyes and never be capable to see something in any respect.”
He wrote that he was scared he wouldn’t be capable to see his toddler son develop up.
“It’s simply type of brazen indifference to essentially apparent issues, belongings you would have thought absurd a decade in the past — like the truth that you may’t see,” the person’s lawyer, Brian Hoffman, stated. “Earlier than, you possibly can try and work with people on the federal government aspect and perhaps disgrace them into doing the suitable factor. Now, it’s type of like something you need finished it’s important to go to courtroom and sue over.”
Even courtroom orders aren’t all the time sufficient. One California decide ordered the federal government to take a person exhibiting indicators of prostate most cancers to a specialist for analysis and therapy. Information present they didn’t take him.
Attorneys representing ICE advised the decide that officers missed the appointment due to an “inner scheduling error.” CoreCivic, which runs that facility, stated it was unable to touch upon lively litigation.
A Surge in Instances
When immigrants file habeas corpus petitions, they train a proper to problem illegal imprisonment that dates to medieval times.
Greater than 40,000 such petitions have been filed throughout Trump’s second time period, fueled by choices final 12 months to disclaim bond to many individuals held on immigration costs. Judges are break up on whether or not that’s authorized; the query seems headed to the Supreme Courtroom.
Many habeas claims have been successful, however judges sometimes cite causes unrelated to the medical neglect described within the petitions, equivalent to detainees’ being held too lengthy earlier than being deported.
The greater than 300 medical neglect claims discovered on this investigation symbolize a fraction of the issue. The main points of habeas corpus circumstances are sometimes hidden resulting from a federal rule barring the general public from viewing such paperwork on-line. KFF Well being Information and AP obtained some paperwork from courthouses and obtained information on 4,400 circumstances from Habeas Dockets, a undertaking of the nonprofit Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative. However tens of 1000’s extra stay largely inaccessible.
Some judges have written that the habeas course of isn’t the right way to increase allegations of medical neglect and have declined to launch detainees over these claims. Not each detainee who believes they skilled medical neglect information a habeas petition or cites their medical points in the event that they do.
Jose-Antonio Segismundo’s petition made no point out of being unable to see an oncologist for the most cancers in his stomach whereas detained for greater than seven months on the Florida detention facility generally known as Alligator Alcatraz and Folkston D Ray ICE Processing Heart in Georgia. Medical information in his courtroom filings present he was arrested about 5 weeks earlier than his scheduled appointment with a most cancers specialist.
His spouse, Maria Jose Gonzalez, stated he didn’t obtain any therapy although she despatched his medical information and defined his situation to officers at Folkston. When his abdomen ache erupted, typically all of a sudden and intensely, she stated, they gave him Tylenol.
Geo Group, which runs Folkston, follows ICE requirements and offers healthcare and entry to off-site medical specialists when wanted, spokesperson Christopher Ferreira stated.
This spring, Segismundo, 48, was deported to Mexico, a rustic he left practically 30 years in the past, Gonzalez stated. Now, she stated, he should restart his seek for care within the Oaxacan village the place he grew up.
Watching Cherished Ones Deteriorate
Detainees receiving insufficient healthcare have little recourse. The Division of Homeland Safety final 12 months gutted the Workplace of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. In early Could, it shut the workplace totally, arguing that Congress didn’t fund it.
Beforehand, ombudsman staffers may assist facilitate medical care or look into complaints of neglect, based on Matt Boles, an immigration lawyer in Georgia. Now, he stated, there’s nobody to name.
In the meantime, detainees’ households stated they really feel helpless, making determined calls to services, the federal government, and their legislators whereas watching their family members deteriorate.
Riya Khan noticed her mom get sicker on the California Metropolis Detention Facility, which is owned by CoreCivic. When she visited every week after her mom arrived on the facility within the Mojave Desert, Riya stated, the 64-year-old lady stumbled into her seat. She was shaking and her respiratory was labored.
Masuma Khan got here to the U.S. from Bangladesh in 1997. She has no prison historical past, her information say, and was detained in October when she confirmed up for her common ICE check-in.
For the month she was detained, based on her daughter, she solely intermittently obtained her medicines for situations together with hypertension, hypothyroidism, and prediabetes. CoreCivic treats persistent situations in keeping with relevant medical requirements, Todd stated.
“Nothing issues extra to CoreCivic than the well being, security and well-being of the folks in our care,” Todd stated.
Khan stated she acquired her bronchial asthma medicine for the primary time two days earlier than she was launched and that her eye drops for glaucoma by no means arrived. Staffers advised Khan she wanted to purchase a few of her medicines from the commissary nevertheless it didn’t inventory them, her daughter stated.
Earlier than ICE detained Masuma Khan, she made associates with everybody, her daughter stated. She had labored for years at Fortunate Boy, an iconic Pasadena fast-food restaurant, and in her free time fed birds and omitted fruit for bees that visited her condo’s balcony.
Now she’s too scared to go outdoors. She nonetheless should often examine in with ICE, and he or she’s terrified every time.
A Stroke on a Video Name
Beforehand, detainees with critical medical wants would possible have been launched on humanitarian parole, partially to keep away from the price of their care, Vermont lawyer Andrew Pelcher stated.
In fiscal 12 months 2023 — earlier than the detained inhabitants soared — ICE spent greater than $390 million on healthcare for detained noncitizens, based on its most recent annual report to Congress. In Could, Todd Lyons, then appearing director of ICE, stated at a convention that the company had already spent “nearly half a billion {dollars}” on detainee healthcare this 12 months.
Now, beneath “obligatory detention,” persons are staying locked up with critical — and costly — situations.
A Romanian citizen underwent a number of coronary heart surgical procedures, together with an emergency triple bypass in April 2025, earlier than he was arrested in July. As a part of his restoration, the 52-year-old was required to take 16 every day medicines. Whereas at an ICE area workplace in Baltimore, his courtroom filings allege, he went two days with none medicine earlier than officers moved him to a facility in New Jersey.
He was hospitalized thrice whereas detained, complaining of chest pains — partially, medical information and courtroom paperwork say, as a result of regardless of “numerous requests,” the detention heart didn’t present all his medicines. Hospital discharge papers cited by his lawyer present he obtained solely eight of the 16 medicines after his second launch from the hospital.
“Are you able to please speak to the ICE facility to ensure they provide him his medicines?” his therapy suppliers wrote in medical information included in his courtroom filings. “He was admitted final week for chest ache and immediately he was readmitted once more for chest ache secondary to non compliance for medicines.”
A number of weeks later in August, he had a stroke whereas on a video name along with his daughter, based on courtroom filings. “He was struggling to breathe, and was pointing at his chest the place he was once more experiencing ache, and all of a sudden stopped talking.” His daughter screamed for assist by way of the video monitor, based on his petition. “Ultimately an officer got here in to help him and lower the feed.”
The person misplaced his capability to talk for 4 days, the doc says. He was returned to detention, the place he remained till a federal decide ordered his launch in November.
Unattainable Selections
Cassandra Amador waits for the cellphone to ring each morning, determined to ask her husband the query that’s woken her up each evening for months: “Did you get your drugs?”
Her husband, Pedro Javier Amador Gutierrez, 36, has hypertension and is dependent upon the state-run facility in Florida nicknamed “Deportation Depot” to manage the prescriptions which have stored him alive for years. Many mornings, he tells his spouse he didn’t get them.
When she talks to him, she stated, he sounds weaker and extra scared every single day, not just like the upbeat man who would take her youngsters out for ice cream.
“You may hear in his voice how he feels,” she stated.
Now, she stated, he’s contemplating returning to Cuba, which he fled due to political persecution, out of concern that he’ll die in detention with out his medicines. Amador and her kids would go together with him, she stated, although she was born in New Jersey, has by no means been to Cuba, and doesn’t communicate a lot Spanish.
However he’s already collapsed twice on the Baker Correctional Establishment in Sanderson, Florida, his spouse stated. She’s terrified that the following time, he received’t rise up.
Methodology
KFF Well being Information and The Related Press sifted by way of 1000’s of immigration habeas corpus claims to seek out allegations of medical neglect from folks detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the course of the second Trump administration.
And not using a complete, publicly accessible dataset of medical complaints by these in ICE custody, we used immigration habeas corpus claims to determine detainees’ healthcare-related allegations raised in federal courtroom. Though the meant goal of habeas corpus is to problem the legality of a petitioner’s detention — moderately than situations of their confinement — these filings generally embrace detainees’ claims of insufficient healthcare.
However habeas corpus filings are usually not all the time publicly accessible. Federal guidelines limit how members of the general public can entry habeas petitions filed by folks in immigration detention. For many of those circumstances, courtroom web sites publish solely courtroom orders and dockets describing different filings. The preliminary petitions can be found solely by way of in-person visits to federal courthouses throughout the nation. Habeas Dockets, a undertaking of the nonprofit Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative, coordinates a nationwide community of volunteers to assemble these petitions and make them accessible on-line.
KFF Well being Information and AP analyzed the dockets of roughly 33,000 circumstances filed by detainees from Jan. 20, 2025, by way of March 2026. The overwhelming majority of circumstances had solely fundamental procedural data, like dates of courtroom filings and rulings. Solely about 4,400 included the unique petitions.
We additionally gathered a number of dozen case information from courthouses, attorneys, and the Massachusetts federal district courtroom web site, which posts most petitions beneath a novel standing order.
We ran key phrase and semantic searches of courtroom information, together with petitions, motions, and orders, for phrases and phrases probably associated to medical neglect, equivalent to surgical procedure, medicines, insufficient medical care, and therapy for persistent situations equivalent to diabetes and hypertension.
We discovered about 500 circumstances probably alleging medical neglect. A minimum of two reporters reviewed every case manually, yielding greater than 300 circumstances containing particular allegations in sworn filings of delayed, denied, or poor healthcare.
To be conservative, we excluded dozens of circumstances that alleged insufficient medical care however lacked specifics, for instance a petitioner writing, “I’ve been sick and don’t get correct therapy,” or a decide noting a petitioner “complains that ICE is ignoring his medical issues.” We additionally excluded circumstances by which petitioners claimed solely that they had been denied particular diets, train, or different lodging that they stated had been key to managing their well being situations, equivalent to a petitioner writing, “I endure from Parkinson’s and can’t correctly train,” or claiming that the meals supplied was unfit for an individual with diabetes.
The circumstances we analyzed had been neither randomly chosen nor consultant of immigration habeas filings nationwide. The claims weren’t independently verified. Many filings are usually not publicly accessible, and never all detainees increase medical issues in courtroom, so our account of circumstances represents a restricted window into the panorama of claims, moderately than a complete image.
Related Press journalists Garance Burke, Valerie Gonzalez, and Tim Sullivan in addition to KFF Well being Information correspondent Kate Wells contributed to this report.
This report is a collaboration between The Related Press and KFF Well being Information.
