Senate Investigations Find Medical Neglect and Other Human Rights Violations in Immigration Detention Centers

A new report from Sen. Jon Ossoff (D–Ga.) has found more than 80 cases of medical neglect and inadequate food and water in immigration detention centers across the country, the Associated Press reports. Detainees have been denied insulin and other needed medications; one went days without treatment after suffering a heart attack.

These findings follow a July 30 report, also from Ossoff’s office, that uncovered 510 credible cases of human rights violations at immigrant detention facilities, including mistreatment of children and pregnant women.

With President Donald Trump’s rush to deport a million people each year, immigration detention centers have seen skyrocketing numbers of detainees. As of September 21, the total number of immigrants imprisoned in the centers was 59,762—up from 39,238 on January 26, according to TRAC Reports, a government watchdog group. To accommodate the swell, the Trump administration has relied on a network of more than 605 detention centers nationwide, including state-run facilities such as Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, private prisons and jails, and hotels, hospitals, airports, and military bases.

The increased bedspace has been funded, in part, by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in July, which appropriated nearly $75 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to create more detention capacity, hire more personnel, and maintain the facilities. But even with the funding, reports of overcrowding, inadequate food and water, and medical neglect have persisted, culminating in ICE’s deadliest year since 2005. 

Amid the ongoing federal government shutdown, DHS’s entire Office of Detention Oversight remains closed. More broadly, while the rest of the immigration-control apparatus is growing, DHS’s oversight offices have been seeing steep staffing cuts. Without internal oversight, only a few lawmakers such as Ossoff have looked to hold negligent immigration officials accountable.

Outside the government, several civil liberties groups have been challenging the immigration bureaucracy in court. Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union and others urged ICE leadership to end the detention of pregnant immigrants, having received reports from more than a dozen pregnant women who were shackled, restrained, or held in solitary confinement or who received substandard prenatal care, food, and water, “leading to dangerous infection or miscarriage.” And many other lawsuits have been filed alleging inhumane conditions at immigration detention centers across the country. 

The DHS has denied the allegations of abuse; after the release of Ossoff’s July report, accused the senator of “peddling FALSE claims that rely on inaccurate reporting to score political points,” signaling a strong unwillingness to change course. But Ossoff, who has investigated the mistreatment of ICE detainees for years, including during the Biden administration, told the A.P. that his motivation lies with ensuring that detainees are treated humanely. Given the litany of lawsuits and climbing death toll at ICE facilities, Ossoff’s reporting should be taken seriously. Meanwhile, DHS keeps labelling those who end up in immigration detention “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens”—a claim that has been debunked. The agency doesn’t seem to be displaying much interest in respecting its detainees’ human dignity.