Stephanie Armour
Fernando Viera Reyes wanted a biopsy for doable prostate most cancers when the Trump administration despatched him to an immigration detention heart in California’s Mojave Desert.
There, he waited. Reyes, now 51, made repeated requests for the process, based on a lawsuit filed in November towards the federal authorities, however months glided by although there was blood in his urine — a possible signal of most cancers that’s unfold.
“It may have gone from very treatable to metastasized,” stated Kyle Virgien, who, as a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, is concerned with the lawsuit.
“There are vulnerable populations; it’s crowded. The medical care isn’t there to handle the increased number of people who are sick,” Virgien stated.
President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort has led to a document variety of immigrants being held in federal detention facilities, native jails, and personal prisons. The scenario is placing detainees’ well being in danger. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is violating requirements that guarantee immigrants obtain preliminary medical screenings, routine well being care, and well timed responses to bodily complaints, based on a assessment of greater than 200 pages of detainee lawsuits, published independent and academic research reviews, and up to date congressional investigations by Democrats.
Complaints about insufficient medical care at detention services threat including to the political backlash Trump faces over his aggressive deportation marketing campaign, together with the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. Democratic members of Congress have insisted on reining in federal immigration brokers as a part of a 2026 spending invoice for the Department of Homeland Security, an deadlock that threatens to largely shut down the company.
Spokespeople for ICE and ICE Health Services Corps, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House didn’t reply to repeated requests for touch upon this text. IHSC assesses well being for deportation, oversees medical requirements in contracted services, and reimburses for off-site medical care.
However, on the IHSC website, assistant director Stewart Smith stated the corps “upholds health care standards across ICE-owned and contracted facilities, and ensures the provision of required health care delivery for detained aliens.” For ICE’s half, its website notes that “many aliens may not have received recent or reliable medical treatment for existing conditions prior to entering ICE custody. For some individuals, this may represent their first access to comprehensive medical care.”
Some Democratic lawmakers have demanded post-mortem reviews on detainees who died in custody and have publicly accused ICE of denying immigrants entry to care. Rep. Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.) stated {that a} detention facility she visited on the state’s historic Fort Snelling had no medical coverage and “no real” on-site medical care.
“It raises alarm bells from a medical and public health perspective,” Morrison, who’s a physician, instructed KFF Health News. “There are no beds, no blankets, minimal food. It’s freezing in there. Everyone is in leg shackles. It’s chaotic, disorganized, and, frankly, dangerous.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) not too long ago denounced the well being care given to detainees at a press briefing she held after visiting Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy in Minneapolis who was despatched to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. She went to the middle following media reviews that he’d developed a fever and was in poor health.
“The treatment these people are suffering under right now is worse than those who are accused and sometimes even convicted of crimes. That’s how bad it is,” she stated.
DHS locked down Dilley this month after two detainees contracted measles. The facility additionally homes kids who’re susceptible to extreme issues of the sickness, comparable to mind swelling.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Feb. 1 accused the administration of denying him entry to Dilley in late January with a purpose to conceal the measles outbreak.
And three measles cases have been not too long ago reported at a facility in Florence, Arizona.
Public concern is mounting, with practically 60% of voters saying they disapproved of how Trump has dealt with immigration, based on a current ballot carried out by Siena University and The New York Times.
The kind and scope of well being care companies that grownup immigrants are purported to obtain rely partially on the place they’re held. ICE detention requirements apply to particular facilities comparable to personal prisons that home each inmates and detainees, whereas separate standards are required at services that usually home adult immigrant detainees.
Despite the variations, certain basics are anticipated. Immigrants are purported to obtain a medical, dental, and psychological well being screening once they arrive, they usually’re purported to obtain each day sick calls, round the clock emergency care, and different companies, together with preventive care, screening, analysis, and therapy.
The requirements exist to “ensure that detainees are treated humanely; protected from harm; provided appropriate medical and mental health care; and receive the rights and protections to which they are entitled,” based on ICE’s national standards, revised final 12 months.
But the company’s failure to stick to its personal requirements is leaving immigrant detainees susceptible to medical emergencies and dying, issues from untreated continual diseases, and an infection with communicable illnesses, based on lawsuits from advocates, congressional probes by Democrats, and state reports.
DHS has criticized a number of the investigations as false, together with a report by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) on pregnant ladies and youngsters in detention.
“ICE detention facilities have higher standards than most U.S. prisons that detain American citizens. All detainees are provided with comprehensive medical care, proper meals,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated in an August statement. On Feb. 17, McLaughlin introduced she could be stepping down from her DHS submit.
Weakened Oversight, Less Infrastructure
Access to satisfactory well being companies has been imperiled due to the surge in detainees, a scarcity of oversight by the Trump administration, and a delay in processing medical claims that’s jeopardized care, say advocates, attorneys, and a few docs.
“The challenges have been exacerbated because the pace of removals hasn’t kept up with the pace of detentions. It adds to the problem,” stated Drishti Pillai, an affiliate director at KFF, a well being data nonprofit that features KFF Health News. “There are more public health issues when facilities are crowded.”
The variety of immigrants in detention swelled from about 40,000 in November 2023 underneath former President Joe Biden to a record 73,000 people in mid-January, based on the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group that focuses on litigation and analysis.
At the identical time, the Trump administration has weakened oversight of the situations and well being companies at detention facilities. It minimize workers on the DHS Immigration Detention Ombudsman workplace, successfully shuttering most of its operations, based on a KFF evaluation and the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on financial analysis.
The ombudsman’s mission has been to “independently examine immigration detention to promote safe, humane conditions,” based on the company. DHS is at present the goal of a partial authorities shutdown due to Democrats’ opposition to a funding bill for the company. As superior by Republicans, that measure would zero out the ombudsman’s funding.
There are additionally prolonged delays to course of detainee well being fee claims from third-party docs and hospitals — a holdup that advocates and the federal authorities have stated jeopardizes care.
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ Financial Services Center lengthy had a contract with ICE to course of claims for care outdoors detention facilities, comparable to oncology remedies or dialysis.
Congressional Republicans criticized the arrangement and claimed it diverted sources from veterans.
Veterans Affairs in October stopped processing detainees’ claims. Documents ICE posted on a federal contracting web site stated the termination “created an emergency” by compromising the flexibility to reimburse suppliers and left the company with no mechanism to supply companies comparable to tuberculosis screening, nonemergency medical transportation, and medical tools purchases.
“It is an absolute emergency for ICE to immediately procure claims processing support because lack of this support will delay critical medical care … such as dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, chemotherapy, etc.,” based on partially redacted documents posted in late 2025 at Sam.gov, a federal system for contract information.
A brand new claims processor, Acentra Health, has been retained, however ICE has stated on its web site that no claims might be processed till April 30. Advocates say it’s unclear whether or not detainees are gaining access to off-site care as wanted and say the claims delays are additionally discouraging medical suppliers from offering companies to the immigrants.
“DHS has signed a new contract to process these claims and is currently onboarding the vendor,” stated Veterans Affairs spokesperson Pete Kasperowicz. “Meanwhile, VA is supporting this transition until May to ensure claims are processed appropriately.”
Deaths in Custody
ICE reports that not less than eight detainees have died in custody up to now in 2026, with 33 detainee deaths in 2025 and 11 in 2024. Those figures are contested, nonetheless, by some advocates and lawmakers who say the totals exclude detainees who died whereas being apprehended or within the care of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
House Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee say 53 individuals have died in ICE or CBP custody since Trump took workplace. They are demanding information from DHS, together with post-mortem reviews for every dying, staffing necessities for medical professionals, and video footage of 1 detainee who died in Texas.
“We are outraged” on the deaths, based on a Jan. 22 letter from the 13 lawmakers. “It is obvious yet tragic that ICE is unwilling or unable to provide basic care for detainees.”
The Democrats pointed to the dying of Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, who was born in Cuba. He died Jan. 3 at a detention heart in Fort Bliss, Texas, after ICE stated he skilled medical misery. He had been taken into custody nearly six months earlier.
“At no time during detention is a detained alien denied emergency care,” ICE stated in a Jan. 9 assertion on the dying.
The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide that occurred after Campos was restrained by regulation enforcement.
Meanwhile, different immigrants are nonetheless ready for care. Reyes, who wanted a biopsy for doable prostate most cancers, ultimately had the screening take a look at, however as of early February had not obtained outcomes. “He is in constant agonizing pain,” based on the lawsuit filed within the Northern District of California.
On Feb. 10, a federal choose ordered ICE and DHS to supply adequate health care to detainees and to conduct exterior monitoring, together with on-site inspections of the detention heart.
