A U.S. Senate investigation uncovered dozens of credible reports of medical neglect and poor conditions. Immigration detention centers nationwide Detainees are not given insulin, left without medical attention for days and are forced to compete for clean water, raising scrutiny of how the government oversees its vast detention system.
Report released by Senator. Jon OssoffThe Democratic congressman from Georgia is the second in a series of investigations into alleged human rights abuses in the United States. Immigration detention system. The report builds on an August investigation that looked into abuse of children and pregnant women, and is based on more than 500 reports of abuse and neglect collected between January and August.
The latest findings document more than 80 credible cases of medical negligence and widespread complaints of inadequate food and water. Senate investigators say this points to systemic deficiencies in federal detention oversight.
The report cites testimony from detainees, lawyers, advocates, media outlets, and at least one Department of Homeland Security official, describing delays in medical care that in some cases were life-threatening. One detainee reportedly suffered a heart attack after complaining of chest pains for several days and was not treated. Some said their inhalers and asthma medications had been withheld, or they had to wait weeks for their prescriptions to be filled.
“Ambulances have to come almost every day,” a Department of Homeland Security official assigned to one detention center told investigators, according to the report.
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Ossoff said the findings reflect serious oversight deficiencies in 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 has the right to dignity and humane treatment. That is why I have spent many years investigating and exposing abuses in prisons, jails and detention centers. That is why I continue to do this work.”
The medical report also details how a diabetic detainee went two days without having his blood sugar levels checked or receiving insulin and developed delirium before receiving medical care, and how it took months for another detainee to be given medication to treat a gastrointestinal illness.
Expired milk, dirty water, and missing food are reported.
The Senate inquiry also identified persistent complaints about food and water, including evidence from court filings, depositions and interviews. Detainees described food that was too small for adults, milk that was sometimes expired, and water that smelled bad and made children sick. in one Texas facilityone teenager said adults were forced to compete with children for clean water bottles, even though staff left only a few bottles at a time.
The Associated Press reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement multiple times on Wednesday and Thursday for comment on the report’s findings, but the agency did not provide a response. The Department of Homeland Security previously criticized Ossoff’s initial report in August, calling claims that detainees were mistreated false and accusing him of trying to “score political points.”
Lawyers for some of the people held in facilities across the country said they have seen firsthand some of the medical and dietary problems.
Stephanie Alvarez Jones, Southeast District Attorney for the National Immigration Project, said one of her clients was denied prescribed medical equipment while detained at Angola’s Camp J facility in Louisiana for the past two months. The man, who is in his 60s, experienced stroke-like symptoms, including partial paralysis, and ended up being taken to hospital and transferred to intensive care for several days.
Doctors there prescribed a walker to help her get around during her recovery, but Alvarez-Jones said that when she first returned, detention staff did not give her a walker and placed her in an isolation cell.
“He still couldn’t walk on his own,” she said. “He was still paralyzed on the left side of his body.”
Alvarez-Jones said the guards indicated to the man that they believed he was faking an illness. He was eventually given the option of remaining in the isolation cell and being allowed to move around as a pedestrian, or returning to general inmate status. She said he relies on the public’s help to eat and use the bathroom while he recovers.
Baltimore field office investigated
Amelia Degen, senior attorney at the Amica Immigrant Rights Center, is working on the case against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Deportation Service’s Baltimore field office and those responsible for domestic immigration enforcement operations.
Dagen said some of the organization’s clients have had to fight to get medical supplies at detention facilities in Baltimore. Through the lawsuit, he said, the agency was forced to admit in court records that the facility, which was originally intended to hold detainees for only about 12 hours, had no food vendor to provide three meals a day or full-time medical staff.
But since January, various immigration enforcement measures have made it very likely that detainees will be held in a holding room in Baltimore for up to a week.
“What we started hearing right away, probably around February, was that the food they were being fed three times a day was incredibly inadequate,” Degen said. “I heard that sometimes it was protein bars, and sometimes it was just bread and water. It had very little nutritional value and there was very little variety. So sometimes it was military rations, but it was just rice and beans, so it wasn’t a complete meal.”
Dagen said detainees must also request a bottle of water, but it is not always given. The ICE office’s position is that there is a continuous water supply from sinks attached to cell toilets. But Dagen said detainees have complained that the water in the sinks tastes bad.
“This is 100% a problem of their own making,” she said of the authorities. “These detention rooms were not used in this way before 2025. They are setting these quotas on themselves, removing their discretion to release people, and trying to arrest numbers of people that are impractical… knowing full well that they do not have the capacity to detain these people.”
