Hi. I’m Rae Ellen Bichell, a KFF Health News journalist based in Colorado. I dive deep into whatever topic I’m covering, whether it’s medical advances to encourage burping or how often people get a chunk of their paycheck taken away because of medical bills. Email me news tips at rbichell@kff.org.
By Rae Ellen Bichell
As the current federal administration rounded up an increasing number of immigrants, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding more than 75,000 in mid-January alone, we heard scattered, localized complaints from detainees alleging medical neglect. We wondered about the extent of the problems and whether the agency and its contractors were keeping pace with detainees’ medical needs nationwide. But no central repository exists, so we had to get creative — and dive into a trove of court records.
Detainees are filing record numbers of habeas corpus petitions in federal court arguing they’re being held illegally. Sometimes those cases mention medical conditions. But a federal rule makes immigration filings tricky to obtain because they’re usually available only in person at the court where they were filed. The nation has 94 of those courts.
However, a nonprofit collecting such records through a national network of volunteers gave us documents from thousands of those court cases dating to last January. We teamed up with The Associated Press to dive into them.
In analyzing those files, we found that hundreds of detainees in at least 33 states told courts they’d received inadequate medical care. They said that they didn’t get their medications on time — or at all — for everything from diabetes to Parkinson’s to HIV. They told courts their requests for medical help had gone unanswered for weeks, that their blood sugars rose, infections festered, and cancers went untreated. Some said they had collapsed and had seizures.
Court filings described how one man had a stroke while on a video call with his daughter and lost his ability to speak for several days. Records show he hadn’t been getting all his medications while detained. Another detainee described standing by the door each day waiting for the eye drops he needed to maintain his waning vision, as he worried whether he would be able to see his infant child grow up. Even after being released, a father of six U.S. citizens told us he feared he wouldn’t be able to support them because of lingering pain in his leg — the leg a doctor told him came close to needing amputation when an infection in ICE custody went untreated until he passed out and was hospitalized.
Such allegations spanned facilities of all types, from county jails to sites like “Alligator Alcatraz,” as the Department of Homeland Security gutted the office in charge of oversight.
KFF Health News and AP asked the agency to respond to our findings, but it did not provide comment. DHS acting Chief Medical Officer Sean Conley has previously said “it is both policy and longstanding practice for aliens to receive timely and appropriate medical care from the moment they enter ICE custody.”
Detainees’ families said they feel helpless watching their loved ones deteriorate while in custody and hope they don’t join the rising death toll, which has now reached 51 since the start of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
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