ICE Statement

The actions of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carry profound medical and human rights consequences. Immigration detention, family separation, and enforcement practices that deter individuals from seeking care contribute to documented increases in anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and untreated chronic illness. Recent reports from oversight bodies and human rights organizations have raised serious concerns regarding inadequate medical care and unsafe conditions in detention facilities. Under international human rights law, all individuals are entitled to dignity, due process, and the highest attainable standard of health. Policies that undermine access to care or expose individuals to preventable harm demand scrutiny and accountability. As medical trainees committed to advocacy, we call for transparent oversight of detention conditions, protection of healthcare access regardless of immigration status, and community-based alternatives to detention. The health and human rights of immigrant communities must be protected.

Our asylum clinics are facing unprecedented obstacles to conducting forensic medical evaluations. These evaluations are conducted by clinical personnel and consist of a clinical interview and subsequent physical, psychologic, or gynecologic exam to document sequelae of torture and ill-treatment that an individual has been subjected to. Evaluations yield objective evidence that may be used by medical personnel to assess the consistency of a clients story with objective clinical findings, and may be used by courts to assess credibility of an individual’s claim to asylum. Historically, these evaluations have significantly increased the likelihood that clients are granted asylum in the United States. However, our clinics note the compounding of both pre-existing and novel barriers have made it increasingly more challenging to serve asylum seekers through forensic medical evaluation. 

The experiences of asylum clinics throughout the United States are noted below

Conducting forensic medical evaluation for detained clients requires close communication with detention center personnel as they approve and provide transport for detained asylum seekers to attend their evaluation. In 2025, asylum clinic administrators noted significant changes in responsiveness from detention center personnel. Requests for transport often go unanswered. There likewise have been several instances of confirmed transport with the client ultimately not being brought to the evaluation. Evaluations previously confirmed with detention centers have been subsequently cancelled due to clients being transferred to other states with more adversarial courts. Clinics have adapted to this chaotic and rapidly changing landscape to the best of their ability, effectively working in emergency-response mode, as dockets move more quickly and requests for forensic medical evaluations increase. 

These more recent challenges are superimposed on persistent and enduring challenges that our asylum clinics have encountered when interfacing with ICE to perform forensic medical evaluations for detained clients. ICE personnel regularly insist on being present for all components of the evaluation, including for the interview, medical imaging and physical exam. For this reason, it is nearly impossible to provide asylum seeking clients with a private space where they can speak freely in the absence of detention officers. 

In addition to the aforementioned challenges faced by our asylum clinics, we are particularly concerned by ICE-related morbidity and mortality suffered by individuals in detention centers, as well as for individuals who are not detained but have nonetheless have suffered injury or death due to ICE negligence in the community. We abhor the obvious and flagrant negligence demonstrated by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) that resulted in the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a blind and non-English speaking Rohingya refugee, who was found dead after CBP dropped him off outside of a coffee shop in the middle of winter with no way to contact his family. Similar concerns have been raised in the case of Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has been detained by ICE since March 2025 who experienced a seizure and sustained a head injury in February 2025 followed by a hospitalization that her family was not notified of. She continues to be detained at Prairieland Detention Center in Texas. Both of these individuals were in the process of securing legal residency, navigating the asylum and United States residency process. In both cases, following the proper legal procedures was not enough to ensure their safety.

ICE actions have caused direct and indirect harm to children. Five‑year‑old Liam Ramos in Minnesota was reportedly used as bait during an enforcement operation, with agents directing the child to knock on a door to lure his father out of his house when his family had an active asylum claim. While being detained in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, Liam’s health declined, becoming lethargic and unwell. Since their release, Liam and his father have returned to Minnesota, but they continue to be uncertain about their safety. The Trump administration is committed to continuing to pursue deportation orders against Liam and his family, despite their legal status in the United States as asylum seekers. 

Liam’s case is not unique. It provides insight into ICE detention, judicial neglect by ICE, and medical neglect that is ongoing in detention centers around the United States. Similarly, a two‑year‑old child and her father were detained and transferred across state lines despite a federal judge’s order, raising serious concerns about compliance with judicial oversight. Other young children have been held in ICE custody despite active asylum claims, and U.S. citizen children—including a four‑year‑old undergoing treatment for Stage IV cancer—have been deported along with their caregivers without meaningful access to legal counsel or essential medical care.

Additionally, a November 2025 survey by Physicians for Human Rights and the Migrant Clinicians Network of 691 health workers across 30 states found that the detention and deportation of caregivers are disrupting children’s access to healthcare. Hospitals and clinicians have reported instances of children presenting to emergency rooms without their guardians because families fear that caregivers may be detained. Medical facilities, once viewed as safe spaces for all to receive care regardless of immigration status, are increasingly avoided by immigrant families, resulting in more advanced and life-threatening presentations of otherwise treatable conditions. Children are also acutely aware of the targeting of their families, leading to heightened anxiety, chronic stress, and persistent fear of separation.

While the long-term impacts of the recent escalation in immigration enforcement may not be fully quantifiable for years from now, global research consistently demonstrates that restrictive immigration policies and immigration detention harm children’s mental and physical health. Studies of children who have experienced immigration detention show increased rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation and attempts, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleep disturbances. Physical health impacts, including headaches, nail-biting, weight loss, and toothache, were also noted in increased rates among children following immigrant detention. 

The evidence is clear: immigration detention and increasingly punitive enforcement policies harm children, both those directly detained and those affected through the detention of loved ones. Child detention is a policy choice that places children at risk of profound and preventable harm, and there is no justification for detaining people for documentation status.

The proliferation of ICE within the United States represents a worrying trend of increased repression of the American citizenry and invalidation of the experiences of migrants whose only crime was seeking a better life. As the curriculum subcommittee of PHR SAB, we firmly believe the onus falls upon us, both future physicians and current providers, to educate ourselves and our communities on the rights that should be enjoyed by all under the American Constitution. However, this education should not be limited to the current sociopolitical climate, as it should also contextualize the rise of ICE. 

ICE is not an unprecedented escalation, but rather a natural progression of the settler-colonial and white supremacist logics that have survived and thrived within this sociopolitical environment and prey upon nativist insecurities. Therefore, we urge medical communities to empower themselves with this knowledge and combat ignorance in their community, thereby weakening the grip of players like ICE.  

Multiple human rights organizations have documented violent assaults, sexual abuse, and coercion inside ICE facilities. At Forth Bliss, detained immigrants describe beatings, sexual assault by officers, denial of medical care, and intimidation designed to pressure them into self-deportation.

Although sexual abuse in immigration detention predates the second Trump administration, reports indicate that it continued into 2025. In Louisiana, an ICE officer pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a detained woman, claiming the encounter was consensual when that is impossible with the detention power dynamic. Similar cases have been documented in other states. In an investigation led by Senator Jon Ossoff, 510 credible reports of abuse in immigration and related detention facilities since January 2025 were identified, including allegations of sexual violence, mistreatment of pregnant women, and harm to children. These findings highlight how detention environments can endanger bodily autonomy and maternal health.

LGBTQ+ immigrants, particularly transgender women, face disproportionate abuse. Reporting by Human Rights Watch documents transgender women housed in men’s facilities, subjected to humiliating searches, denied gender-affirming care, and exposed to high rates of sexual assault. At the same time, recent policies have made it easier to detain and deport survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking with pending U or T visa applications, which have previously led to safety for these vulnerable populations, stripping protections and pressuring some to self-deport under threat of detention. Recent reporting from the Guardian also reveals that all pregnant minors, including those who are pregnant from rape, are being moved to immigration detention centers in Texas to avoid providing abortion care. 

Reproductive justice demands bodily autonomy, safe pregnancy, freedom from violence, and the ability to parent in safe communities. Conditions reported in ICE detention directly conflict with these principles. A just immigration system would end the detention of vulnerable populations, enforce survivor protections, and ensure accountability for abuses under ICE.

Prior to 2025, investigations revealed widespread concerns about unauthorized and unnecessary medical procedures in ICE detention centers. A January 2024 Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report found that ICE improperly authorized 32% of major surgeries without following required procedures, making it impossible to verify medical necessity. The report also suggested that forced hysterectomies performed on detained women at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia were not isolated incidents. Additional investigations and testimony from 2020 and onwards described women undergoing invasive gynecological procedures without proper consent, pointing to systemic oversight failures.

Throughout 2025, the pattern of abuse has increasingly shifted from unauthorized surgeries to severe medical neglect. Lawsuits filed by detained individuals at the California City Detention Facility allege delayed diagnoses, denial of medication, lack of specialist access, and failure to transfer medical records. One plaintiff reported being denied a necessary biopsy for suspected prostate cancer after transfer, while others described being refused insulin or urgently needed cardiac care despite emergency room recommendations.

Together, these findings suggest a broader systemic failure in detention healthcare. Whether through unauthorized procedures or ongoing medical neglect, deficiencies in oversight and accountability within ICE detention facilities pose serious risks to detainee health and in turn global health that raise significant human rights and public health concerns.

We are alarmed by ongoing human rights violations within the United States immigration detention system under the authority of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Current policies and practices stand in direct conflict with the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which guarantees the rights to dignity, due process, freedom from arbitrary detention, and protection from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

ICE detention facilities continue to operate under nonbinding standards with limited transparency and insufficient independent oversight. This lack of accountability has enabled systemic neglect and abuse. Nearly three-quarters of individuals held in ICE custody have no criminal conviction, yet they are subjected to conditions that jeopardize their physical and mental health. 

In January 2026, United Nations leadership noted increasingly routine abuse and denigration of migrants and refugees in the United States with arbitrary arrests, violent enforcement actions, inadequate individual case assessments, and the use of force that appeared unnecessary or disproportionate, stressing that immigration enforcement must comply with international human rights law and due process protections. Enforcement actions have also reportedly extended into hospitals, schools, places of worship, courthouses, and private homes, contributing to widespread fear in immigrant communities and disrupting access to what have been previously noted to be safe spaces.

Conditions in several detention facilities reflect broader concerns. At Fort Bliss in Texas, reports describe severe overcrowding, food shortages, unsanitary and unsafe living conditions, extreme heat exposure, and numerous federal detention standard violations shortly after opening. Similar issues have been documented at the Krome Detention Center and the site referred to as Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, including arbitrary detention, prolonged solitary confinement, medical neglect, and hazardous conditions.

The cumulative evidence demonstrates a pattern of disproportionate enforcement practices, denial of adequate medical care, and conditions that undermine human dignity. These practices erode public trust, weaken institutional legitimacy, and violate the United States’ obligations under international human rights law.

The data emerging over the past year reveals a crisis that cannot be dismissed as anecdotal or politically neutral. In 2025, deaths in ICE custody surged to the highest level in more than two decades, with at least 30 deaths reported by ICE data and 32 deaths verified by independent journalists, matching the previous record set in 2004. Reporting shows that six people died in September and another six in December, illustrating not random variation but sustained systemic failure. Senators reviewing internal records have described detainees going without essential medications, suffering miscarriages while shackled, and dying from conditions that should have been treatable, calling the surge in deaths a direct consequence of rapid detention expansion and inadequate medical care. The pattern has continued into 2026: in February, a 27‑year‑old Guatemalan man collapsed and died after “severe medical complications” while in ICE custody, underscoring that the crisis is ongoing rather than historical . These numbers align with prior analyses showing that 95% of ICE detention deaths between 2017 and 2021 were preventable with adequate medical care, a statistic that contextualizes the current mortality spike as a predictable outcome of structural neglect rather than isolated tragedy (State of Surveillance, 2026).

As the Media Committee, we recognize that these realities are often obscured by bureaucratic language, political framing, or the sheer pace of news cycles. Our role is to ensure that the public understands the human‑rights implications of these deaths: people collapsing after untreated medical complications, individuals with chronic illnesses denied their medications, pregnant detainees suffering miscarriages in restraints, and families receiving no meaningful explanation for the loss of their loved ones. We also recognize that ICE’s detention expansion under the current administration has intensified the crisis, with enforcement surges overwhelming already inadequate medical systems and creating conditions where preventable deaths become statistically inevitable rather than exceptional. Our responsibility is to center the human cost, challenge narratives that sanitize state violence, and ensure that the medical and ethical dimensions of this crisis remain visible in public discourse.

We call for independent medical oversight, transparent reporting of all in‑custody deaths, protection for clinicians and whistleblowers, and an end to the detention of medically vulnerable individuals, whose health needs cannot be met in carceral settings. We further urge policymakers, journalists, and the medical community to treat ICE detention as the public‑health emergency it is. As future physicians and human‑rights advocates, we will continue to elevate evidence, amplify the voices of survivors and clinicians, and insist that the public narrative reflects the urgency and preventability of this crisis.

State of Surveillance. (2026). ICE detention deaths: 2025 was the deadliest year in two decades. stateofsurveillance.org

The Migration Committee of the PHR Student Advisory Board stands in solidarity with all those whose lives have been upended by the current administration's immigration enforcement policies. People in migration are among the most medically and psychologically vulnerable populations, arriving frequently with histories of trauma, interrupted care, and displacement-related health conditions, and the documented failures of the detention and enforcement system compound those vulnerabilities at every stage. A 2024 joint report by the American Civil Liberties Union, Physicians for Human Rights, and American Oversight found that independent medical experts concluded 49 of 52 deaths reported by ICE between January 2017 and December 2021 were preventable or possibly preventable with appropriate care. Additionally, a 2024 study by Physicians for Human Rights, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Medical School documented at least 14,264 solitary confinement placements in ICE facilities between 2018 and 2023 averaging 27 days in duration, exceeding the threshold the UN Nelson Mandela Rules define as prolonged, a practice whose harms fall disproportionately on people with the preexisting mental health conditions that migration and displacement so frequently produce. 

The January 2025 nationwide expansion of expedited removal has placed migrants at heightened risk of summary deportation without full proceedings, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found in August 2025 that DHS procedures were "woefully inadequate" for both two-year presence determinations and credible fear referrals, the precise mechanisms on which asylum seekers depend. By February 2026, Reuters reported more than 20,200 federal lawsuits seeking release from detention and more than 4,400 judicial rulings finding detention unlawful, a volume that reflects not only the scale of rights violations but the erosion of the individualized proceedings on which protection claims rest. 

Research efforts are essential to understanding and improving health outcomes among immigrant populations in the United States. During escalations of ICE operations, documented and undocumented immigrant communities have experienced heightened fear of profiling, detention, and deportation. Increased fear under the Trump administration has driven hesitation towards engaging with social services, perpetuating disparities and stalling the collection of outcomes data crucial to immigration research. Further, research regarding immigration detention standards and outcomes has been significantly impeded by the rapid expansion of detention, demonstrated by a 91% increase in the number of detention centers over the course of 2025, coupled with a reduction in oversight and accountability. 

The current expansion of immigration enforcement in the United States cannot be understood in isolation from the broader history of policing practices that have disproportionately targeted Black and Brown communities. Over the past several decades, the militarization of local police forces, the adoption of aggressive tactics such as stop-and-frisk which accounted for over 300,000 frisk incidents involving children, and the systematic overpolicing of communities of color have normalized surveillance-heavy and punitive approaches to public safety. Programs that encouraged cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, such as 287(g) agreements and Secure Communities, further blurred the line between local policing and immigration enforcement, embedding immigration control within routine policing practices.

These policies fostered a framework in which racial profiling, pretextual stops, and heightened police presence in marginalized neighborhoods increased the likelihood that immigrants, particularly those from Latin American, Caribbean, African, and Middle Eastern backgrounds, would be funneled into the immigration detention system. As a result, communities already subject to disproportionate policing became primary targets of federal immigration enforcement. The cumulative effect has been the expansion of a detention system that relies heavily on arrest practices rooted in the same racialized enforcement patterns long documented in domestic policing.

The rapid and deleterious expansion of immigration detention and ICE activity stems from a myriad of policy gaps and failures that have led to worsening medical care and conditions in immigration detention. These policy failures are primarily derived from a lack of oversight to ensure adequate facilities and resources for those being detained, compounded by the privatization of this industry.

To understand the failures in immigration detention policy, we must understand what changes occurred in the past year to widen ICE’s reach and strengthen its boldness. In 2020, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO) was created by Congress through the Consolidated Appropriations Act with the express purpose of independently examining immigration detention conditions to promote safe, humane treatment, functioning as a neutral oversight body structurally separate from the agencies it evaluates.¹ In 2025, the Trump administration moved to effectively eliminate this office, along with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), through large-scale reductions in force targeting congressionally mandated oversight entities.² Following litigation brought by civil rights and immigration advocacy organizations, including Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Southern Border Communities Coalition, federal courts blocked the complete elimination of these offices, requiring DHS to maintain their statutory existence.³ However, OIDO was reinstated at a substantially reduced operating capacity, with reporting indicating that the office retained only a fraction of its prior workforce and faced a significant backlog of unresolved complaints.⁴

At the same time, 2025 marked a period of rapid expansion in immigration detention capacity, driven by passage of the administration’s reconciliation legislation commonly referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which allocated approximately $170 billion in new funding for immigration enforcement, border operations, and detention infrastructure.⁵ Despite this expansion, ICE produced dramatically fewer detention facility inspection reports through its Office of Detention Oversight (ODO), one of the agency’s primary mechanisms for monitoring detention conditions. ICE published 36.25% fewer detention inspection reports in 2025 compared to the previous year, according to an analysis conducted by the Project On Government Oversight and American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop.⁶

As internal oversight capacity declined, members of Congress attempted to conduct oversight visits to immigration detention facilities, as permitted under federal appropriations law, but were repeatedly denied access. ICE imposed a new policy requiring 72 hours’ advance notice for congressional visits, despite no such requirement in federal law and in contravention of longstanding congressional oversight authority.⁷ These actions raise serious concerns regarding ICE’s compliance with federal oversight requirements and underscore how weakened institutional oversight, combined with rapid detention expansion, has enabled the reopening and construction of detention facilities with diminished transparency and accountability.

Data from government reporting and independent monitoring show that immigration detention in the United States overwhelmingly depends on private corporations. As of early 2025, approximately 86% of individuals held in ICE custody were housed in facilities managed by for-profit companies under contract with the federal government, rather than in government-operated centers.⁸ This reliance on private actors has important accountability implications because contractors that operate immigration detention centers are generally not subject to many of the transparency and personnel rules that apply to federal agencies and civil servants. They are typically outside the scope of federal open records laws, civil service requirements, and certain administrative and constitutional constraints that would govern federal officials performing comparable functions, limiting public visibility into detention conditions and performance.⁸ This structural outsourcing of detention authority represents a significant policy failure, contributing to diminished oversight and poorer health outcomes for detained individuals.

These policy failures have resulted in unfettered expansion of ICE presence throughout the US. These policy failures are not neutral; immigration detention in the US functions as a strong and well-documented social determinant of health. These harms are not incidental or rare; they are structural, predictable, and intensified by recent policy choices that have expanded detention capacity, prolonged length of stay, and reinstated family detention.9 10 Alternatives to immigration detention, such as community housing programs, should be utilized to proactively address the harms of ICE activity and immigration detention. 

Citations

1. American Immigration Council. The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman: Oversight of Immigration Detention Conditions. American Immigration Council; 2023. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org. Accessed March 4, 2026.

2. Economic Policy Institute. Reductions in Force Target Oversight Offices at DHS. Economic Policy Institute; 2025. https://www.epi.org. Accessed March 4, 2026.

3. U.S. Government Accountability Office. Department of Homeland Security: Oversight of Immigration Detention and Statutory Compliance. GAO; 2025. https://www.gao.gov. Accessed March 4, 2026.

4. WRAL News. Immigration Detention Ombudsman Office Reinstated at Reduced Capacity. WRAL News; 2025. https://www.wral.com. Accessed March 4, 2026.

5. American Immigration Council. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” and Immigration Enforcement Funding Analysis. American Immigration Council; 2025. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org. Accessed March 4, 2026.

6. Project On Government Oversight; American University Investigative Reporting Workshop. ICE Reduced Publication of Detention Inspection Reports in 2025. Project On Government Oversight; 2025. https://www.pogo.org. Accessed March 4, 2026.

7. American Immigration Lawyers Association. ICE Imposes Advance Notice Requirement on Congressional Oversight Visits. American Immigration Lawyers Association; 2025. https://www.aila.org. Accessed March 4, 2026.

8. American Immigration Council. Immigration Detention in the United States by the Numbers. American Immigration Council; 2025. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org. Accessed March 4, 2026.

9. https://phr.org/news/ice-immigration-raids-endanger-health-and-human-rights-phr/ 

10. Saadi, A., De Trinidad Young, M. E., Patler, C., Estrada, J. L., & Venters, H. (2020). Understanding US Immigration Detention: Reaffirming Rights and Addressing Social-Structural Determinants of Health. Health and human rights, 22(1), 187–197.