A Silent Cry: Medical Negligence in ICE Detention

BY NIRAJ SRIVASTAVA

Impassioned immigration rhetoric echoes and booms across social media and national news. In the lexicon disseminated directly from the White House, immigrants are reduced to “killers, rapists, gangbangers, drug traffickers, and . . . violent criminals.”¹ A swirl of outrage, protest, and demonization of immigrants has settled into the foreground of American political consciousness, relegating acknowledgement of their humanity to the shadows. In media coverage, immigration tensions climax with the arrest of immigrants by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But what happens after people’s arrest—when they are taken to isolated detention facilities and the dissonant cacophony of the American public dissipates into resounding silence? Reports from civil rights groups and attorneys representing detained immigrants sound the alarm on an overstrained detainment system that flagrantly denies proper medical care and directly endangers the health and wellbeing of people within their custody. 

Historically, ICE detention centers have been fraught with reports of medical negligence and poor public health conditions, but since President Trump’s second term in office, reports point to a harrowing failure to provide minimum standard medical care and a pattern of dismissing medical concerns voiced by detained people. The largest number of immigrants in U.S. history are being held in detainment, more than 61,000 people in August 2025, subjecting a greater number of people than ever before to ICE’s detention policies endangering human life.^1,2 Less than a third of those in detainment in June 2025 were convicted of a crime, but regardless of criminal conviction, the U.S. has a responsibility to uphold the human rights and dignity of every human life.³ ICE detention does not preclude such responsibility; it should require stricter scrutiny to ensure the state is upholding human rights and dignity due to the exceptionally vulnerable position of immigrants under their custody. 

ICE’s policy pledges a commitment to quality healthcare for all detained people under its custody, stating: 

One of the agency’s highest priorities is detained alien health care. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) national detention standards require facilities to provide comprehensive medical, dental and mental health care from the moment aliens arrive at a facility and throughout their time in ICE custody.⁴

Reports paint a contrasting picture of the reality inside ICE’s detention facilities. The American Civil Liberties Union determined ninety-five percent of the fifty-two deaths in ICE detention between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2021 were preventable or possibly preventable if they were provided appropriate medical care.⁵ Timely emergency care was often not delivered, and medical staff were found to have falsified or incomplete documentation in 61% of the death cases.⁵ 

In Biden’s four years of presidency, twenty-four people died in ICE detention, with half of those deaths occurring in the last fiscal year, to create a four year average of 0.54 deaths per month.⁶ Within the first eight months of Trump’s second term of presidency, fifteen people died, spiking the rate to 1.88 deaths per month.⁶ While this comparison is not exact due to the greater number of people in ICE detention under the Trump administration and differing time periods, this trend provides preliminary quantitative evidence of a deterioration in the life-saving medical care of immigrants detained in ICE facilities under the Trump administration.

A multitude of case reports detail detention facility staff ignoring medical concerns voiced by people in detainment and denying prescribed medications, leading to adverse medical events that may have been managed or even prevented if provided proper and timely medical care. For instance, in Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome), an ICE detention facility in Miami, one detained woman repeatedly asked officers for her medication to manage her gallstones, but they refused. Two days later, she vomited green bile and slipped into unconsciousness. Other detainees staying with the woman yelled for help for two hours to get the attention of an officer, and once they were aware of the situation, staff took twenty minutes to start taking her to the hospital. She received emergency gallbladder removal surgery once she arrived and was returned to Krome two days later where officers denied her medication she was prescribed for post-operative management, stating they were not authorized to give women medical treatment.⁷ 

Another example of explicit denial of medical care is the case of a man who was transferred between Federal Detention Center (FDC) and Broward Transitional Center (BTC), other ICE detention facilities in South Florida. At BTC, he was denied his prescription medications for days despite informing medical staff. When he collapsed, staff hospitalized him under a false name, then returned him to detention, illuminating a culture of staff deception to cover up their failures to protect the health and safety of detainees.⁷  

Furthermore, abysmal public health conditions, including food shortages, sickness, and overcrowding, have been reported in California, Texas, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Washington detention centers. The South Florida Detention Facility, a detention center run by the state of Florida in partnership with ICE, received strong media attention due to the inhumane conditions, described by detainees as being held in a “dog cage” holding more than thirty people under constant fluorescent light, surrounded by mosquito swarms, given one meal a day, and showering every three to four days.⁸ 

This combination of gross medical neglect and poor conditions makes ICE detention wholly unsuitable for pregnant and postpartum women. However, despite ICE’s internal directive discouraging detainment of these individuals, there are many reports of pregnant and postpartum women detained by ICE that have suffered immensely due to medical negligence. Interviews with several of these women describe staff explicitly denying prenatal vitamins and care despite knowing they are pregnant.⁹ Attorneys report that pregnant women in ICE detention have waited weeks to see a doctor only to have their appointment canceled.¹⁰ 

One woman detained in Stewart ICE Processing Center in Georgia experienced vomiting and abdominal pain. After multiple requests to see a doctor, she was provided with a medical appointment weeks later, where she was found to be about two months pregnant. Two weeks later, she experienced severe vaginal bleeding and cramping in the middle of the night. She asked to receive immediate medical attention, but she only saw a medical provider the middle of the next day. Without informing her of any plan, medical staff left her alone in a small room for hours, where she continued bleeding, without providing food, water, or pain medication. Later in the evening, she was transported to a hospital an hour away with her arms and legs shackled as she was miscarrying. After a blood transfusion at the hospital, she was returned to Stewart with pain medications, where she continued to experience abdominal pain and heavy bleeding for a month.⁹ Her experience highlights the fundamental inability of ICE facilities to provide proper emergency medical care for pregnant and postpartum women, much less preventative maternity care. Staff interventions defy medical guidelines and potentially increase endangerment to the life of the mother and child, illustrating a lack of training, competency, and resources.

Perhaps ICE’s most pervasive medically negligent practice is its prolonged use of solitary confinement. In the last five years, ICE placed 14,000 people in solitary confinement.¹¹ The average period of confinement was twenty-seven days, far in excess of the fifteen day threshold that the United Nations (UN) defines as constituting torture.¹¹ The UN Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners prohibits prolonged solitary confinement, especially for people with mental health conditions due to extreme harmful effects including PTSD, self-harm, and suicide risk.¹¹ 

A telephone survey of people released from immigration detention found 56.7% reported having a diagnosed mental illness, commonly depression and PTSD, and 45.3% experienced solitary confinement.¹² The high burden of mental illness along with the pervasive practice of solitary confinement provides evidence that staff use solitary confinement as a treatment method or punitive punishment because they are unequipped or unwilling to properly handle psychiatric emergencies, exacerbating mental unrest and potentially causing long-term psychological harm.¹² Detainees have reported that solitary confinement is employed as punitive punishment by staff when trying to seek psychological help. One woman detainee explained, “If you ask for help, they isolate you. If you cry, they might take you away for two weeks. So, people stay silent.”⁷

In violation of their own stated policies, constitutional law, and international human rights treaties, ICE detention facilities are violating the human rights of detainees to receive basic healthcare and conditions. However, ICE and the federal government continue to shroud their operations in secrecy and deny any wrongdoing. In response to allegations of poor treatment, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin responded, “Any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”¹⁰ 

ICE and the federal government lack accountability and transparency surrounding immigration detainment, allowing information distortion and mistreatment of vulnerable people they detain without public outcry.¹² Robust systems for accountability and transparency to the American people must be established to end practices of medical negligence and make evidence-based reforms to protect people’s health while in detention.¹² 

In a country claiming to uphold principles of human rights and dignity to the world, the denial of proper medical care to immigrants detained in ICE detention illuminates a grotesque hypocrisy—a devaluation of human life and dignity. We the American people must demand an end to medical negligence in ICE detention. We the American people must give voice to the silent cry of people shrouded behind the iron veil of ICE detention centers. We the American people must catalyze resounding silence into an assertion that in the U.S., dignity and medical care is for all. 

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Citations:

1. President Trump Has Kept His Promises — and Then Some. The White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/07/president-trump-has-kept-his-promises-and-then-some/ (2025).
2. Olivares, J. & Craft, W. Immigrants with no criminal record now largest group in Ice detention. The Guardian (2025).
3. ICE holding a record 59,000 immigrant detainees, nearly half with no criminal record, internal data show – CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-record-59000-immigrant-detainees-half-no-criminal-record/ (2025).
4. Detainee Death Reporting | ICE. https://www.ice.gov/detain/detainee-death-reporting (2020).
5. 95 Percent of Deaths in ICE Detention Could Likely Have Been Prevented With Adequate Medical Care: Report. American Civil Liberties Union https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/95-percent-of-deaths-in-ice-detention-could-likely-have-been-prevented-with-adequate-medical-care-report.
6. Yang, M. Ice detainees death toll reaches 16 amid concerns over ‘horrendous’ conditions. The Guardian (2025).
7. Wille, B. “You Feel Like Your Life Is Over”. Human Rights Watch (2025).
8. Detainees held at Alligator Alcatraz describe cage-like units swarmed by mosquitoes. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alligator-alcatraz-florida-detainees-conditions-fungus-mosquitoes-rcna220205 (2025).
9. ACLU, Partners Demand ICE Release Pregnant and Postpartum People from ICE Detention. American Civil Liberties Union https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-partners-demand-ice-release-pregnant-and-postpartum-people-from-ice-detention.
10. Hundreds of alleged human rights abuses in immigrant detention, report finds. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/immigration-detention-human-rights-abuses-report-rcna222499 (2025).
11. Students and faculty of the Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program at Harvard Law School, members of the Peeler Immigration Lab at Harvard Medical School, and Physicians for Human Rights. “Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention. PHR https://phr.org/our-work/resources/endless-nightmare-solitary-confinement-in-us-immigration-detention/.
12. Patler, C., Saadi, A. & Langer, P. The health-related experiences of detained immigrants with and without mental illness. Journal of Migration and Health 11, 100302 (2025).