An investigation by the U.S. Senate has brought to light numerous credible allegations of medical neglect and substandard conditions within immigration detention centers across the nation.
According to the investigation, detainees have been deprived of essential medication like insulin, left without medical care for extended periods, and forced to compete for access to clean water. These findings have intensified concerns regarding the government’s management of its extensive detention system.
Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, a Democrat, spearheaded the report, which is part of a series of investigations into alleged human rights violations in the immigration detention network. This latest report builds on a previous investigation from August that highlighted the mistreatment of children and pregnant women, drawing on over 500 reports of abuse and neglect collected within the first eight months of the year.
The recent findings reveal over 80 credible instances of medical neglect, alongside widespread complaints about inadequate food and water supply, indicating systemic failures in the federal oversight of these detention facilities.
Testimonies from detainees, legal representatives, advocates, media reports, and even a Department of Homeland Security employee highlight dangerous delays in medical care. One reported case involved a detainee suffering a heart attack after days of untreated chest pain. Other accounts include the withholding of inhalers and asthma medication, as well as weeks-long delays in filling prescriptions.
One Homeland Security employee stationed at a detention center revealed to investigators that “ambulances have to come almost every day,” underscoring the severity of the healthcare shortcomings detailed in the report.
Ossoff said the findings reflect a deeper failure of oversight within federal immigration detention.
“Americans overwhelmingly demand and deserve secure borders. Americans also overwhelmingly oppose the abuse and neglect of detainees,” Ossoff told The Associated Press. “Every human being is entitled to dignity and humane treatment. That is why I have for years investigated and exposed abuses in prisons, jails, and detention centers, and that is why this work will continue.”
The medical reports also detailed how a diabetic detainee went without glucose monitoring or insulin for two days and became delirious before medical attention was given and that it took months for another detainee to receive medication to treat gastrointestinal issues.
The Senate investigation also identified persistent complaints about food and water, including evidence drawn from court filings, depositions and interviews. Detainees described meals too small for adults, milk that was sometimes expired, and water that smelled foul or appeared to make children sick. At one Texas facility, a teenager said adults were forced to compete with children for bottles of clean water when staff left out only a few at a time.
The Associated Press asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on the report’s findings multiple times Wednesday and Thursday, but the agency did not provide a response. The Homeland Security Department previously criticized Ossoff’s first report in August, saying the allegations of detainees being abused were false and accusing him of trying to “score political points.”
Attorneys for some of those detained at facilities across the country said they’ve seen some of the issues with medical care and food firsthand.
Stephanie Alvarez-Jones, a Southeast regional attorney for the National Immigration Project, said one of the organization’s clients was denied a prescribed medical device while being detained at Angola’s Camp J facility in Louisiana in the last two months. The man, in his 60s, experienced stroke-like symptoms, including partial paralysis, and was eventually taken to the hospital, where he was transferred to an intensive care unit for several days.
Doctors there prescribed him a walker to help him move during his recovery, but Alvarez-Jones said the detention staff would not let him have it when he first returned and placed him in a segregation cell.
“He still could not walk by himself,” she said. “He still had paralysis on his left side.” She added: “He was not able to get up and get his food, to shower by himself or to use the bathroom without assistance. So he had to lay in soiled bedsheets because he wasn’t able to get up.”
Alvarez-Jones said the guards had insinuated to the man that they believed he was faking his illness. He was eventually given the choice of staying in the segregation cell and being allowed a walker, or returning to the general detainee population. She said he’s been relying on the help of others in the general population to eat and use the bathroom as he recovers.
Amelia Dagen, a senior attorney with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, is working on a lawsuit against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Removal Operations Baltimore Field Office as well as officials in charge of national immigration enforcement efforts.
Dagen said several of the organization’s clients have had to fight for access to medication at the Baltimore holding facility. Through the lawsuit, she said the government agency had to admit in the court record that it does not have a food vendor to provide three meals a day or any onsite medical staff at the facility that was initially only supposed to hold detainees for about 12 hours.
But since January and the various immigration enforcement actions, it’s much more likely that detainees are held for as much as a week in the Baltimore Hold Room.
“What we started hearing very quickly, maybe in February, was that the food they were being fed three times a day was incredibly inadequate,” Dagen said. “We would hear sometimes it would be a protein bar or sometimes just bread and water. There is very little nutritional value and very little variety. I mean, sometimes it was a military ration component, but just the rice and beans, not a full meal.”
Dagen said the detainees also have to ask for bottles of water and they aren’t always given. The ICE office has taken the stance that the sinks attached to the cell toilets are a continuous supply of water. But Dagen said the detainees complained the sink water has a bad taste.
“This is 100% a problem of their own making,” she said of the authorities. “These hold rooms were not used in this way prior to 2025. They are setting themselves these quotas, removing discretion to release people and trying to arrest numbers of people that are just impractical … fully knowing they don’t have the ability to hold these people.”
