An Albanian man’s ache grew so insufferable, he mentioned, he pulled out his personal tooth as he languished for months in a New Mexico immigration detention heart. A Honduran mom of two mentioned she was hospitalized for a coronary heart downside after she was denied blood stress medicines whereas held in Florida. A Venezuelan man mentioned his leg grew purple and swollen from flesh-eating micro organism when staffers at a Vermont facility didn’t convey him to a scheduled physician appointment.
Tons of of detainees throughout a minimum of 33 states allege in federal fits that immigration detention amenities 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, despair, 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 underneath an inflow of detentions since President Donald Trump returned to workplace: Greater than 75,000 immigrants have been being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as of mid-January, up from round 40,000 a yr earlier.
KFF Well being Information and AP analyzed hundreds of court docket circumstances filed since Trump’s second inauguration that use a authorized route often known as habeas corpus to argue individuals are being held illegally by ICE. The data supply a uncommon window into how these detained say, typically underneath penalty of perjury, ICE is dealing with their medical wants. Reporters additionally interviewed greater than 50 detainees, relations, and legal professionals.
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 akin to “Alligator Alcatraz.”
ICE custody is deadlier than it has been in twenty years, researchers wrote in JAMA in April. The Division of Homeland Safety reported 51 folks had died in detention for the reason that 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, however it didn’t present remark. The division’s performing 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 take care of excessive requirements. “That is higher, extra responsive healthcare than many aliens have ever acquired of their whole lives,” he has mentioned.
Particular person amenities and personal jail corporations contracting with DHS that responded to requests for remark mentioned they comply with ICE requirements and detainees obtain medical care when it’s required. Some mentioned they have been unfamiliar with the allegations outlined in court docket 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 town of Henderson, mentioned medical care is at all times out there on the facility and that the court docket had not ordered modifications 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 properties, and in hospitals.
About 70% of detainees haven’t any felony conviction. Their immigration proceedings are civil, not felony.
“I couldn’t perceive why they handled me so harshly,” mentioned a father of six in Georgia. He mentioned he was injured whereas shackled in custody when the automobile transporting him to an Atlanta facility jolted, throwing him out of his seat and right into a metallic armrest. His wound turned contaminated with E. coli, he mentioned, 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 mentioned they worry 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 aren’t naming anybody recognized in court docket paperwork with out their consent.
Staffers at Stewart Detention Middle 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 mentioned, a health care provider instructed him he’d narrowly escaped amputation of his left leg. Medical workers discovered no data of a case matching this description, in response to Brian Todd, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, which runs the ability.
The 48-year-old, who moved to the U.S. from Guatemala greater than twenty years in the past, was launched in October and is now a authorized everlasting resident. However he’s uncertain if he’ll have the ability to return to his job in development as a result of, he mentioned, he can not elevate heavy issues as a result of his harm.
Some detainees or their legal professionals mentioned 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 want to imagine the federal government has the perfect curiosity of these it holds in detention for no matter time frame,” Choose Benita Pearson, a federal choose in Ohio, mentioned 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 because of the lack of glasses when detained, that ought to be mounted.”
Dora Schriro, who labored for ICE and now serves as a particular adviser to the American Bar Affiliation, mentioned 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 steadily moved throughout the nation, typically with out warning, interrupting therapy. A girl from El Salvador mentioned she missed per 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 received to see him, as a result of my being moved round numerous 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 take care of what imaginative and prescient remained. However, he mentioned, some days the drops by no means got here.
“Now I can solely see somewhat bit straight in entrance. It now typically appears like I’m seeing by gauze,” the person wrote in a court docket declaration. “This makes me very afraid that one among these occasions I’m going to open my eyes and never have the ability to see something in any respect.”
He wrote that he was scared he wouldn’t have the ability to see his toddler son develop up.
“It’s simply kind of brazen indifference to essentially apparent issues, stuff you would have thought absurd a decade in the past — like the truth that you may’t see,” the person’s lawyer, Brian Hoffman, mentioned. “Earlier than, you may try and work with people on the federal government aspect and possibly disgrace them into doing the suitable factor. Now, it’s kind of like something you need carried out it’s important to go to court docket and sue over.”
Even court docket orders aren’t at all times sufficient. One California choose ordered the federal government to take a person displaying indicators of prostate most cancers to a specialist for analysis and therapy. Information present they didn’t take him.
Attorneys representing ICE instructed the choose that officers missed the appointment due to an “inner scheduling error.” CoreCivic, which runs that facility, mentioned it was unable to touch upon lively litigation.
A Surge in Circumstances
When immigrants file habeas corpus petitions, they train a proper to problem illegal imprisonment that dates again to medieval times.
Greater than 40,000 such petitions have been filed throughout Trump’s second time period, fueled by choices final yr to disclaim bond to many individuals held on immigration expenses. Judges are cut 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, akin to detainees’ being held too lengthy earlier than being deported.
The greater than 300 medical neglect claims discovered on this investigation signify a fraction of the issue. The main points of habeas corpus circumstances are sometimes hidden as a result of a federal rule barring the general public from viewing such paperwork on-line. KFF Well being Information and the AP obtained some paperwork from courthouses and acquired data on 4,400 circumstances from Habeas Dockets, a challenge of the nonprofit Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative. However tens of hundreds extra stay largely inaccessible.
Some judges have written that the habeas course of is just not how one can 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 often known as Alligator Alcatraz and Folkston D Ray ICE Processing Middle in Georgia. Medical data in his court docket filings present he was arrested about 5 weeks earlier than his scheduled appointment with a most cancers specialist.
His spouse, Maria Jose Gonzalez, mentioned he didn’t obtain any therapy despite the fact that she despatched his medical data and defined his situation to officers at Folkston. When his abdomen ache erupted, typically all of the sudden and intensely, she mentioned, they gave him Tylenol.
Geo Group, which runs Folkston, follows ICE requirements and supplies healthcare and entry to off-site medical specialists when wanted, spokesperson Christopher Ferreira mentioned.
This spring, Segismundo, 48, was deported to Mexico, a rustic he left almost 30 years in the past, Gonzalez mentioned. Now, she mentioned, he must restart his seek for care within the Oaxacan village the place he grew up.
Watching Beloved Ones Deteriorate
Detainees receiving insufficient healthcare have little recourse. The Division of Homeland Safety final yr gutted the Workplace of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. In early Could, it shut the workplace completely, arguing that Congress didn’t fund it.
Beforehand, ombudsman staffers might assist facilitate medical care or look into complaints of neglect, in response to Matt Boles, an immigration lawyer in Georgia. Now, he mentioned, there’s nobody to name.
In the meantime, detainees’ households mentioned they really feel helpless, making determined calls to amenities, 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 per week after her mom arrived on the facility within the Mojave Desert, Riya mentioned, the 64-year-old lady stumbled into her seat. She was shaking and her respiration was labored.
Masuma Khan got here to the U.S. from Bangladesh in 1997. She has no felony historical past, her data say, and was detained in October when she confirmed up for her common ICE check-in.
For the month she was detained, in response to her daughter, she solely intermittently acquired her medicines for situations together with hypertension, hypothyroidism, and prediabetes. CoreCivic treats continual situations in step with relevant medical requirements, Todd mentioned.
“Nothing issues extra to CoreCivic than the well being, security and well-being of the folks in our care,” Todd mentioned.
Khan mentioned she received 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 instructed Khan she wanted to purchase a few of her medicines from the commissary however it didn’t inventory them, her daughter mentioned.
Earlier than ICE detained Masuma Khan, she made buddies with everybody, her daughter mentioned. She had labored for years at Fortunate Boy, an iconic Pasadena fast-food restaurant, and in her free time fed birds and overlooked fruit for bees that visited her residence’s balcony.
Now she’s too scared to go exterior. She nonetheless should repeatedly test in with ICE, and he or she’s terrified every time.
A Stroke on a Video Name
Beforehand, detainees with critical medical wants would doubtless have been launched on humanitarian parole, partly to keep away from the price of their care, Vermont lawyer Andrew Pelcher mentioned.
In fiscal yr 2023 — earlier than the detained inhabitants soared — ICE spent greater than $390 million on healthcare for detained noncitizens, in response to its most recent annual report to Congress. In Could, Todd Lyons, then performing director of ICE, mentioned at a convention that the company had already spent “virtually half a billion {dollars}” on detainee healthcare this yr.
Now, underneath “necessary detention,” individuals 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 each day medicines. Whereas at an ICE discipline workplace in Baltimore, his court docket filings allege, he went two days with none medicine earlier than officers moved him to a facility in New Jersey.
He was hospitalized 3 times whereas detained, complaining of chest pains — partly, medical data and court docket 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 acquired 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 data included in his court docket 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 together with his daughter, in response to court docket filings. “He was struggling to breathe, and was pointing at his chest the place he was once more experiencing ache, and all of the sudden stopped talking.” His daughter screamed for assist by the video monitor, in response to his petition. “Ultimately an officer got here in to help him and minimize the feed.”
The person misplaced his skill to talk for 4 days, the doc says. He was returned to detention, the place he remained till a federal choose ordered his launch in November.
Not possible 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 medication?”
Her husband, Pedro Javier Amador Gutierrez, 36, has hypertension and will depend on the state-run facility in Florida nicknamed “Deportation Depot” to manage the prescriptions which have saved him alive for years. Many mornings, he tells his spouse he didn’t get them.
When she talks to him, she mentioned, he sounds weaker and extra scared day-after-day, not just like the upbeat man who would take her children out for ice cream.
“You may hear in his voice how he feels,” she mentioned.
Now, she mentioned, he’s contemplating returning to Cuba, which he fled due to political persecution, out of worry that he’ll die in detention with out his medicines. Amador and her kids would go along with him, she mentioned, despite the fact that 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 mentioned. She’s terrified that the following time, he gained’t rise up.
Methodology
KFF Well being Information and The Related Press sifted by hundreds of immigration habeas corpus claims to search out allegations of medical neglect from folks detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through the second Trump administration.
With out a complete, publicly out there dataset of medical complaints by these in ICE custody, we used immigration habeas corpus claims to determine detainees’ healthcare-related allegations raised in federal court docket. Though the supposed goal of habeas corpus is to problem the legality of a petitioner’s detention — quite than situations of their confinement — these filings generally embrace detainees’ claims of insufficient healthcare.
However habeas corpus filings aren’t at all times publicly out there. Federal guidelines limit how members of the general public can entry habeas petitions filed by folks in immigration detention. For many of those circumstances, court docket web sites publish solely court docket orders and dockets describing different filings. The preliminary petitions can be found solely by in-person visits to federal courthouses throughout the nation. Habeas Dockets, a challenge of the nonprofit Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative, coordinates a nationwide community of volunteers to collect these petitions and make them out there on-line.
KFF Well being Information and AP analyzed the dockets of roughly 33,000 circumstances filed by detainees from Jan. 20, 2025, by March 2026. The overwhelming majority of circumstances had solely fundamental procedural data, like dates of court docket filings and rulings. Solely about 4,400 included the unique petitions.
We additionally gathered a number of dozen case information from courthouses, legal professionals, and the Massachusetts federal district court docket web site, which posts most petitions underneath a singular standing order.
We ran key phrase and semantic searches of court docket data, together with petitions, motions, and orders, for phrases and phrases doubtlessly associated to medical neglect, akin to surgical procedure, medicines, insufficient medical care, and therapy for continual situations akin to diabetes and hypertension.
We discovered about 500 circumstances doubtlessly alleging medical neglect. At the very least 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 choose noting a petitioner “complains that ICE is ignoring his medical issues.” We additionally excluded circumstances through which petitioners claimed solely that they have been denied particular diets, train, or different lodging that they mentioned have been key to managing their well being situations, akin 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 have been neither randomly chosen nor consultant of immigration habeas filings nationwide. The claims weren’t independently verified. Many filings aren’t publicly out there, and never all detainees increase medical issues in court docket, so our account of circumstances represents a restricted window into the panorama of claims, quite 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.
