Behind Closed Doors: Inhumane Treatment in Federal Immigration Detention Facilities

In recent months, public attention has rightly focused on the tragic deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, killed by federal agents during a surge of immigration enforcement in Minnesota. While this pair of killings grabbed headlines, the majority of fatalities connected to federal immigration enforcement actually occur after individuals have been detained. At least 32 people have died in 2025 while under the supervision of federal immigration authorities, an astounding figure that is three times more than the total of the previous year and represents a two-decade high. This grim pattern has unfortunately continued in 2026, and an additional six people have died in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) custody as of January.

Each of these deaths cannot just be treated like a statistic. Each name, from Genry Ruiz Guillén, who died in Krome Detention Center in South Florida on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, to Víctor Manuel Díaz, who died in Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, on Monday, Jan. 14, 2026, represents a story of suffering, neglect, and, in many cases, preventable loss of life. These deaths are not just isolated incidents, but the “tragic result of a system failing to meet the most basic duty of care,” as U.S. Senator Alex Padilla from California said, following a tour of a detention center in California City, Calif.

Across facilities nationwide, individuals report unsanitary and poor conditions that fall short of basic human standards, ranging from medical neglect, physical, and sexual abuse to a distinct lack of concern for detainee welfare.

At the heart of these failures is one escalating problem: overcrowding. Immigration detention numbers have surged by as much as 75% since President Donald Trump took office. Facilities designed for short-term processing or limited capacities have been pushed far beyond their limits. This has resulted in inhumane living conditions for detainees.

Marcelo Gomes, a detainee in Massachusetts, reported the effect of such overcrowding to The New York Times, stating he was forced to live for six days with 35 to 40 other men in a windowless room, sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor and sharing one toilet. In these conditions, hygiene is a major concern, something that federal officials have largely ignored, with detainees reporting being unable to shower or change their clothes for days on end.

Furthermore, there have been many reports of insufficient and inedible food allotments for detainees. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports that at Fort Bliss, the largest detention facility in the country, detainees “are forced to ration food, skip meals, or take turns eating — and when food is available, it is often spoiled or partially frozen, causing widespread vomiting, diarrhea, and rapid weight loss.”

“These are the worst conditions I have seen in my 20-year career,” Paul Chavez, litigation and advocacy director at Americans for Immigrant Justice in Florida, said in an interview with the New York Times. “Conditions were never great, but this is horrendous.” 

Medical access also remains a major concern. According to a 2024 study from the ACLU, an examination of 52 deaths of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees from 2017 to 2021, independent medical experts found that 95% of these deaths were deemed “preventable or possibly preventable if ICE had provided clinically appropriate medical care.” Now, with the Trump administration’s ramping up of immigration enforcement and detention facilities continually exceeding their contractual capacity, the risks are compounding to new heights. 

Detainees with serious conditions reported going days or weeks without receiving their prescribed medications. At Fort Bliss, detainees “consistently say that staff do not respond to medical requests for days and that people must faint or bleed before receiving attention.” Such indifference results in wholly avoidable medical emergencies and lives cut short. One disturbing example comes from Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami-Dade County, Fla., where on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, Maksym Chernyak, a 44-year-old Ukrainian, passed away from a stroke. It took Krome staff more than 40 minutes from the start of Chernyak’s medical emergency to call an ambulance, raising serious questions about the adequacy of medical services in detention facilities. All medical staff should know that in emergencies, especially when it comes to strokes, every minute matters. A 40-minute lapse cannot be seen as anything other than a catastrophic failure of duty. 

Yet another dimension of the crises inside immigration detention lies in another deeply troubling reality: the physical and sexual abuse of detainees. On Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, Geraldo Lunas Campos, a father of four and Cuban immigrant who had been living in the United States for 30 years, passed away in ICE custody at the Camp East Montana facility. The government provided alternating accounts of what happened, initially claiming Lunas Campos died from a medical emergency and later that he died while being rescued from a suicide attempt. However, a witness reported that Lunas Campos was handcuffed and held down by at least five guards, with one guard squeezing his neck until he was unconscious. The autopsy report by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office found signs of struggle and determined the cause of death to be asphyxia due to neck and torso compression. 

Though this is a particularly grotesque example, Camp East Montana is not unique for its inhumane practices. Across immigration detention facilities nationwide, detainees have reported extreme and unlawful uses of force. At Fort Bliss, for example, detainees reported beatings, being stomped on, slammed, and “officers crushing their testicles during beatings.” Public reports describe at least two 911 calls from the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California referencing reported or threatened sexual assaults. All in all, according to a 2025 report from U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff’s office, a total of 41 credible reports of physical and sexual abuse have been reported from individuals in DHS custody. In all likelihood, this is a conservative number, given the pervasive fear of retaliation and the barriers detainees face in reporting abuse. That reality further underscores a disturbing trend of systemic abuse.

Too often, public attention is focused on the violent and intrusive field actions of the DHS, while the daily realities behind detention center walls remain largely invisible. The deaths, abuse, and neglect of detainees under federal control are a marked infringement upon all American values. I’ve touched on overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions, medical neglect and incompetence, and physical and sexual abuse, but these are just a few of the many ways in which the system fails to uphold the basic rights and humanity of those it confines. Thus, it is a moral imperative to implement oversight, accountability, and enforceable standards as soon as possible. 

Theo Chun is a member of the class of 2028 and can be reached at tkchun@wesleyan.edu.