Allegations of medical neglect are mounting in migrant concentration camps across the country. The last year and a half, 2025 and 2026, have been the deadliest period on record since the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2003. At least 18 detainees have died since Jan. 1, putting this year on pace to surpass last year’s death toll. In total, 51 people have died in ICE custody since the beginning of the second Trump regime.
Nearly 75,000 migrants are now trapped in a national network of detention facilities, up from around 40,000 last year. Tens of thousands are held and processed in private prisons, many of them operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic, the two largest contractors in the detention market. ICE is legally required to provide medical care to all detainees in its custody, and private operators are bound by the same requirement. Policies adopted in 2021 required DHS to report the deaths of all detainees within one month of release. That rule was rescinded by the new DHS director in early June, further obscuring the atrocious medical care provided inside migrant concentration camps.
A 2023 report documented widespread medical failures in detention facilities across the southern U.S. Evaluators found cases in which detention staff failed to properly address acute and chronic medical symptoms, failed to order necessary labs or imaging, and failed to refer detainees with serious symptoms to specialists. These failures frequently worsened chronic medical conditions. Evaluators also found that detainees often did not receive their prescribed medicine, missed daily medication for several days in a row, or were given over the counter painkillers such as Tylenol or Advil instead of the medication they had been prescribed.
Conditions have only continued to worsen. Even as ICE and private prison operators receive massive sums in federal funding and contracts, medical care for detainees remains inadequate at best and nonexistent at worst.
Callous indifference and malice from guards and staff are common throughout these camps, reflecting an institutional attitude that runs from the highest levels of the Trump regime down to rank and file employees.
One woman detained at Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania said staff and guards were utterly indifferent to her chronic chest pain. In a court statement, she wrote, “Moshannon is a terrible place. I cry almost every day. ICE and the guards treat us like criminals. … They treat us like we are worthless, like we are animals. … I complain to the medical staff at Moshannon about my chest pain when it is really bad, which is a lot. I have told them that the medication isn’t working and asked them for something else, or for them to do something to help me. They usually tell me there’s nothing they can do. One time, I was lying on the floor in pain, my heart was pounding and my chest was hurting so bad. They just laughed at me and said I was faking it. I didn’t think that I could breathe.”
Another man at Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, Florida, told officers he had previously suffered a heart attack and was not feeling well. According to his lawyer’s court statements, the man “was placed in a holding cell with more than 25 men who alerted ICE officers that the Petitioner was in distress. The officers removed him from the room and laughed at him. They again advised him that he was pretending in order to seek release”.
When the man was transported to the hospital due to him really suffering a medical emergency, “he was guarded by ICE officers who intentionally antagonized him and caused him emotional distress to the point that medical staff was required to intervene.”
Another case is that of Ruslan Makhmudov, who was detained at the Central Arizona Florence Correctional Center. While in ICE custody, he underwent two open heart surgeries and his condition rapidly deteriorated. His doctor submitted a letter to the court stating, “Ruslan underwent a David procedure and pacemaker implantation in February 2025. However, just one day after this major operation, without any monitoring, rehabilitation, or pain control, he was returned in shackles to ICE detention. … Apparently he had a myocardial infarction (heart attack) shortly after his return from surgery, but no treatment was provided. … The lack of rehabilitation, monitoring, and cardiac follow-up are immediate life-threatening risks to him.”
His wife also submitted a petition to the court using even more direct language. “My husband is being deliberately destroyed inside immigration detention. … He was placed in solitary confinement for 30 days right after a CT scan and a confirmed myocardial infarction. They punished him for asking to avoid metal detectors due to his pacemaker. Officers mocked him, tightened handcuffs over a splinted arm, rushed him while he could barely move, and bullied him for use of the restroom. They changed his uniform to red and made it clear he should stop asking for help. … He never received rehabilitation, which directly caused his heart attack. They didn’t clean his surgical wound, they had no solution. Two cardiology visits were canceled. When the heart attack occurred, he waited 5 hours in pain before an ambulance was called, only because other detainees begged guards. After that they isolated him in solitary confinement with disciplinary restrictions, limited his food, his access to clean water, and left him without medical supervision. … They often ‘lose’ his medications to make him beg and suffer. This is psychological torture.”
DHS acting chief medical officer Sean Conley previously claimed that “it is both policy and long-standing practice for aliens to receive timely and appropriate medical care from the moment they enter ICE custody.” He further claimed that the health care detainees receive “is better, more responsive healthcare than many aliens have ever received in their entire lives.” The chief medical officer’s use of the term “aliens” to refer to human beings is evidence enough of the contempt ICE shows toward the medical needs of the tens of thousands of migrants trapped in concentration camps across the country.
