An Albanian man鈥檚 pain grew so unbearable, he said, he pulled out his own tooth as he languished for months in a New Mexico immigration detention center. A Honduran mother of two said she was hospitalized for a heart problem after she was denied blood pressure medications while held in Florida. A said his leg grew purple and swollen from flesh-eating bacteria when staffers at a Vermont facility did not bring him to a scheduled doctor鈥檚 appointment.
Hundreds of detainees across at least 33 states allege in federal lawsuits that immigration detention facilities are failing to provide adequate medical care, an investigation by KFF Health News and The Associated Press found. Detainees say they didn鈥檛 get medications on time 鈥� or at all 鈥� for conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, epilepsy, Parkinson鈥檚 and HIV. Requests for help went unanswered for weeks. Blood sugars rose. Infections festered. Detainees collapsed and had seizures.
U.S. jails and immigration detention centers have to meet the medical needs of the people in their charge. But the system is sagging under an influx of detentions since President Donald Trump returned to office: More than 75,000 immigrants were being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement up from around 40,000 a year earlier.
KFF Health News and AP analyzed thousands of court cases filed since Trump鈥檚 second inauguration that use a legal route known as to argue people are being held illegally by ICE. The records offer a rare window into how those detained say 鈥� often under penalty of perjury 鈥� ICE is handling their medical needs. Reporters also interviewed more than 50 detainees, family members and lawyers.
The investigation revealed that medical neglect is alleged across the sprawling detention system, including in offices not designed to house people, county jails and quickly staged sites with nicknames such as 鈥淎lligator Alcatraz.”
ICE custody is deadlier than it has been in two decades, researchers wrote in April. The Department of Homeland Security reported 51 people had died in detention since the start of Trump鈥檚 second administration, with suicides
KFF Health News and AP asked DHS to respond to the findings six days before publication but it did not provide comment. The department’s acting chief medical officer, Sean Conley, 鈥渋t is both policy and longstanding practice for aliens to receive timely and appropriate medical care from the moment they enter ICE custody鈥� and that DHS recruits healthcare professionals to maintain high standards. 鈥淭his is better, more responsive healthcare than many aliens have ever received in their entire lives,鈥� he said.
Individual facilities and private prison companies contracting with DHS that responded to requests for comment said they follow ICE standards and that detainees receive medical care when it is required. Some said they were unfamiliar with the allegations outlined in court documents; others blamed the detainees themselves for lapses in their medical care.
鈥淚 have never seen such disregard or medical neglect like this anywhere,鈥� Vardan Gukasian, a political dissident and former paramedic who spent years behind bars in Armenia, wrote in to contest his detention in Henderson, Nevada, as it stretched to 13 months despite his health problems.
Madeleine Skains, a spokesperson for the city of Henderson, said medical care is always available at the facility and that the court had not ordered changes to his care.
Last June, as Gukasian experienced the symptoms of uncontrolled high blood pressure 鈥� dizziness, a nosebleed and a headache 鈥� his cellmate banged on their door for help.
鈥淲hen it did not arrive, the rest of the block banged on their doors,鈥� he wrote. Gukasian was hospitalized that day.
鈥楤razen indifference to really obvious problems鈥�
The administration鈥檚 mass deportation effort has swept up during routine immigration check-ins, at traffic stops, at their homes and in hospitals.
About have no criminal conviction. Their immigration proceedings are civil, not criminal.
鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 understand why they treated me so harshly,鈥� said a father of six in Georgia. He said he was injured while shackled in custody when the vehicle transporting him to an Atlanta facility jolted, throwing him out of his seat and into a metal armrest. His wound became infected with E. coli, he said, because he had to sleep on a dirty concrete floor amid leaking toilets.
Like other detainees interviewed, he spoke on the condition of anonymity; they said they fear for their safety, for the safety of their families or that speaking out would jeopardize their immigration cases. The AP and KFF Health News are not naming anyone identified in court documents without their consent.
Staffers at Stewart Detention Center in rural Lumpkin, Georgia, didn鈥檛 adequately respond to that man鈥檚 request for medical help, court records say, until he passed out and was taken to a hospital about an hour away. There, he said, a doctor told him he鈥檇 narrowly escaped amputation of his left leg. Medical staff found no records of a case matching this description, according to Brian Todd, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, a private prison company, which runs the facility.
The 48-year-old, who moved to the U.S. from Guatemala more than two decades ago, was released in October and is now a legal permanent resident. But he is unsure if he鈥檒l be able to return to his job in construction because he said he can no longer lift heavy things due to his injury.
Some detainees or their lawyers said even basic care was denied: gauze to protect an open foot wound, prenatal care for a high-risk pregnancy, a pillow to ease the pain of sleeping with advanced stomach cancer, sanitary pads for postpartum bleeding.
鈥淚 would like to believe the government has the best interest of those it holds in detention for whatever period of time,鈥� Judge Benita Pearson, a federal judge in Ohio, said during a hearing in October concerning a 70-year-old who alleged the government lost her glasses during her arrest. 鈥淚f one is unable to see due to the loss of glasses when detained, that should be fixed.鈥�
, who worked for ICE and now serves as a special adviser to the American Bar Association, said case law requires the government to treat people in immigration detention with the same care it affords those in traditional jails awaiting trial. But administrators are granted discretion and medical care standards vary.
Detainees are frequently moved across the country, often without warning, interrupting treatment. A woman from El Salvador said she missed a week of HIV medication when she was transferred from Colorado to a county jail in Wyoming.
A Russian man wrote that he saw a gastroenterologist about his painful gallstones while detained in Texas and scheduled an appointment with a surgeon. 鈥淯nfortunately, I never got to see him, due to my being moved around various detention centers.鈥�
Advocates say even obvious disabilities, like legal blindness, are ignored.
A detainee who lost one eye and had severe glaucoma in the other required twice-daily drops to maintain what vision remained. But, he said, some days the drops never came.
鈥淣ow, I can only see a little bit straight in front. It now often looks like I鈥檓 seeing through gauze,鈥� the man wrote in a court declaration. 鈥淭his makes me very afraid that one of these times I am going to open my eyes and not be able to see anything at all.”
He wrote that he was scared he wouldn’t be able to see his infant son grow up.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just sort of brazen indifference to really obvious problems, things you would have thought absurd a decade ago 鈥� like the fact that you can鈥檛 see,鈥� the man鈥檚 attorney, Brian Hoffman, said. 鈥淏efore, you could attempt to work with folks on the government side and maybe shame them into doing the right thing. Now, it鈥檚 sort of like anything you want done you have to go to court and sue over.鈥�
Even court orders aren鈥檛 always enough. One California judge ordered the government to take a man showing signs of prostate cancer to a specialist for diagnosis and treatment. Records show they did not take him.
Lawyers representing ICE told the judge that officials missed the appointment because of an 鈥渋nternal scheduling error.鈥� CoreCivic, which runs that facility, said it was unable to comment on active litigation.
A surge in cases
When immigrants file habeas corpus petitions, they exercise a right to challenge unlawful imprisonment that dates back to medieval times.
More than 40,000 such petitions have been filed during Trump鈥檚 second term, fueled by decisions last year to deny bond to many people held on immigration charges. Judges are split on the question appears headed to the Supreme Court.
Many habeas claims , but judges typically cite reasons unrelated to the medical neglect described in the petitions, such as being held too long before being deported.
The more than 300 medical neglect claims found in this investigation represent a fraction of the problem. The details of habeas corpus cases are often hidden due to a federal rule barring the public from viewing such documents online. KFF Health News and AP obtained some documents directly and received records on 4,400 cases from , a project of the nonprofit Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative. But tens of thousands more remain largely inaccessible.
Some judges have written that the habeas process is not how to raise allegations of medical neglect and have declined to release detainees over those claims. Not every detainee who believes they experienced medical neglect files a habeas petition or cites their medical issues if they do.
Jose-Antonio Segismundo鈥檚 petition made no mention of being unable to see an oncologist for the cancer in his abdomen while detained for more than seven months at the Florida detention facility known as Alligator Alcatraz and Folkston D Ray ICE Processing Center in Georgia. Medical records in his court filings show he was arrested about five weeks before his scheduled appointment with a cancer specialist.
His wife, Maria Jose Gonzalez, said he didn鈥檛 receive any treatment even though she sent his medical records and explained his condition to officials at Folkston. When his stomach pain erupted, often suddenly and intensely, she said, they gave him Tylenol.
Geo Group, which runs Folkston, follows ICE standards and provides healthcare and access to off-site medical specialists when needed, spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said.
This spring, Segismundo, 48, was deported to Mexico, a country he left nearly 30 years ago, Gonzalez said. Now, she said, he will have to restart his search for care in the Oaxacan village where he grew up.
Watching loved ones deteriorate
Detainees receiving inadequate healthcare have little recourse. DHS last year gutted the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. In early May, it shut the office entirely, citing a lack of funding from Congress.
Previously, ombudsman staffers could facilitate medical care or investigate complaints of neglect, according to Matt Boles, an immigration attorney in Georgia. Now, he said, there鈥檚 no one to call.
Meanwhile, detainees鈥� families said they feel helpless, making desperate calls to facilities, the government and their legislators while watching their loved ones deteriorate.
Riya Khan saw her mother get sicker at the California City Detention Facility, which is owned by CoreCivic. When she visited a week after her mother arrived at the facility in the Mojave Desert, Riya said, the 64-year-old woman stumbled into her seat. She was shaking and her breathing was labored.
Masuma Khan came to the U.S. from Bangladesh in 1997. She has no criminal history, her records say, and was detained in October when she showed up for her regular ICE check-in.
For the month she was detained, according to her daughter, she only intermittently received her medications for conditions including high blood pressure, hypothyroidism and prediabetes.
CoreCivic treats chronic conditions in line with applicable medical standards, Todd said.
鈥淣othing matters more to鈥疌oreCivic鈥痶han the health,鈥痵afety鈥痑nd well-being of the people in our care,鈥� Todd said.
Khan said she got her asthma medication for the first time two days before she was released and her eye drops for glaucoma never arrived. Staffers told Khan she needed to buy some of her medications from the commissary but it didn’t stock them, her daughter said.
Before ICE detained Masuma Khan, she made friends with everyone, her daughter said. She had worked for years at Lucky Boy, an iconic Pasadena fast-food restaurant, and in her free time fed birds and left out fruit for bees that visited her apartment鈥檚 balcony.
Now she鈥檚 too scared to go outside. She still must regularly check in with ICE, and she鈥檚 terrified each time.
A stroke on a video call
Previously, detainees with serious medical needs would likely have been released on humanitarian parole, in part to avoid the cost of their care, Vermont attorney Andrew Pelcher said.
In fiscal year 2023 鈥� before the detained population soared 鈥� ICE spent more than $390 million on healthcare for detained noncitizens, according to its most recent annual report to Congress. At a conference in May, then acting director Todd Lyons said ICE has spent 鈥渁lmost half a billion dollars鈥� on detainee healthcare this year.
Now, under 鈥渕andatory detention,” attorneys say people are staying locked up with serious 鈥� and expensive 鈥� conditions.
A Romanian citizen underwent several heart surgeries, including an emergency triple bypass in April 2025, before he was arrested in July. As part of his recovery, the 52-year-old was required to take 16 daily medications. While at an ICE field office in Baltimore, his court filings allege, he went two days without any medication before officials moved him to a facility in New Jersey.
He was hospitalized three times while detained, complaining of chest pains 鈥� in part, medical records and court documents say because, despite 鈥渃ountless requests,鈥� the detention center did not provide all his medications. Hospital discharge papers cited by his lawyer show he received only eight of the 16 medications after his second release from the hospital.
鈥淐an you please talk to the ICE facility to make sure they give him his medications?鈥� his treatment providers wrote in medical records included in his court filings. 鈥淗e was admitted last week for chest pain and today he was readmitted again for chest pain secondary to non compliance for medications.鈥�
Several weeks later in August, he had a stroke while on a video call with his daughter, according to court filings. 鈥淗e was struggling to breathe, and was pointing at his chest where he was again experiencing pain, and suddenly stopped speaking.鈥� His daughter screamed for help through the video monitor, according to his petition. 鈥淓ventually an officer came in to assist him and cut the feed.鈥�
The man lost his ability to speak for four days, the document says. He was returned to detention, where he remained until a federal judge ordered his release in November.
Families of ICE detainees are left with impossible choices
Cassandra Amador waits for the phone to ring every morning, desperate to ask her husband the question that鈥檚 woken her up every night for months: 鈥淒id you get your medicine?鈥�
Her husband, Pedro Javier Amador Gutierrez, 36, has high blood pressure and depends on the state-run facility in Florida nicknamed 鈥淒eportation Depot鈥� to administer the prescriptions that have kept him alive for years. Many mornings, he tells his wife he did not get them.
When she talks to him, she said, he sounds weaker and more scared every day, not like the upbeat man who would take her kids out for ice cream.
鈥淵ou can hear in his voice how he feels,鈥� she said.
Now, she said, he鈥檚 considering returning to Cuba, which he fled because of political persecution, out of fear that he will die in detention without his medicines. Amador and her children would go with him, she said, even though she was born in New Jersey, has never been to Cuba and doesn鈥檛 speak much Spanish.
He has already collapsed twice at the Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson, Florida, his wife said. She鈥檚 terrified that the next time, he won鈥檛 get up.
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This report is a collaboration between The Associated Press and KFF Health News. Associated Press journalists Garance Burke, Valerie Gonzalez and Tim Sullivan as well as KFF Health News correspondent Kate Wells contributed.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
