Denial of custodial medical care
Systemic withholding, delay, or denial of necessary medical care to persons in state custody -- corrections, immigration detention, or other confinement -- that falls short of a documented death but still endangers health or safety. It matters because custody strips a person of the ability to seek their own care; the state's monopoly on their access to it makes withholding care a form of abuse distinct from a discrete act of force.
2026 Events (7)
Capital & Main investigation revealed ICE and CoreCivic denied an asylum seeker medical care for a kidney infection at Otay Mesa
A September 8, 2026 Capital & Main investigation revealed that a Colombian asylum seeker held at the CoreCivic-run Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego went undertreated for a worsening kidney infection over roughly ten months, from a November 2025 report of heavy bleeding through an August 2026 flare-up. Her medical records document repeated denials and delays: a recommended ultrasound went unperformed for months, a May 2026 emergency-room visit found an abnormal urinalysis but recorded "no acute disease," and she was later hospitalized and diagnosed with pyelonephritis. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment, and CoreCivic said only that it takes "any allegation" about medical care "seriously."
San Francisco Chronicle investigation revealed CBP held dozens of SFO detainees, including green-card holders, beyond 72-hour legal limit
A San Francisco Chronicle investigation published September 1, 2026 found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has held at least 25 people beyond its own 72-hour detention limit at San Francisco International Airport through July 2026, 19 of them lawful permanent residents; one detainee spent eight days without a bed or shower, and another went without diabetes medication for eight days until paramedics were called. Rep. Kevin Mullin, whose district includes SFO, conducted an unannounced oversight visit the same day and said CBP officers acknowledged the extended holds reflect "a definitive policy shift from the Trump administration."
ICE denied transgender women hormone therapy and gender-affirming care at Eloy and Aurora detention facilities
An August 31, 2026 LOOKOUT investigation documented transgender women detained by ICE at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona and the Aurora ICE Processing Center in Colorado being denied hormone therapy and other gender-affirming medical care, producing menopause-like symptoms, severe psychological distress, and increased suicidal ideation; one detainee, identified only as Valentina, went 22 days without hormones and was later held in isolation for nine days over an unsubstantiated accusation. The denials followed a series of 2025-2026 federal policy changes, including a Bureau of Prisons halt on gender-affirming care, a Justice Department narrowing of PREA protections for LGBTQ+ detainees, and Aurora's dismantling of one of its two transgender housing pods, and a separate New York Times investigation independently confirmed the Department of Homeland Security has curtailed specialized transgender care at detention centers nationwide.
Missouri Department of Mental Health left man found incompetent to stand trial in county jail for years awaiting treatment bed
A Marshall Project investigation, published August 24, 2026 and republished by the Missouri Independent, found that the Missouri Department of Mental Health left Carl Henry Louis -- a man found incompetent to stand trial -- confined in the Clay County jail in Liberty, Missouri for roughly two and a half years, from his 2021 arrest until January 2024, awaiting a state psychiatric bed for court-ordered competency-restoration treatment. The wait included months after a judge suspended Louis's criminal case in August 2023 and ordered him committed for treatment, during which the jail continued to hold him because no bed was available. Missouri's own figures show the statewide waitlist for competency evaluation or restoration grew from 27 people in 2016 to 549 by July 2026, with at least two deaths in jails on the waitlist since May 2025.
Deportees say ICE agents assaulted, restrained, and denied them medical care and bathroom access on Liberia deportation flight
On August 20, 2026, deportees said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents beat, restrained, and denied them medical care and bathroom access during a roughly 14-hour deportation flight from Louisiana to Monrovia, Liberia, the first of an expected 1,200 people to be sent to Liberia under a third-country deportation arrangement. Deportees said agents beat those who resisted, denied a Cuban national with a surgically repaired abdominal wound access to a toilet and later knelt on his abdomen on the tarmac, and held others for days without beds in an unheated room. The Department of Homeland Security denied several of these specific claims on the record but did not address most of the deportees' other allegations.
ICE detained pregnant Massachusetts woman in bedless holding cell, denied care until hospitalization forced her release
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Djeniffer Benvinda Ribeiro Semedo, a 22-year-old Cape Verdean national who was 24 weeks pregnant, at Brockton District Court on February 11, 2026 on an outstanding default warrant and held her at its Burlington field office in a bedless holding room, where she slept on a concrete bench. Her abdominal pain, nausea, and decreased fetal movement went unaddressed over roughly three days until she was transferred to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on February 13, where ICE agents continued to restrict her family's access to her.
Minnesota Star Tribune investigation revealed ICE held Whipple detainees in overcrowded cells without bedding, medical care, or menstrual products
A Minnesota Star Tribune investigation, published February 1, 2026 and based on interviews with 30 detainees, attorneys, and advocates plus a review of nearly 200 federal court records, found that ICE and DHS held immigration detainees at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis in overcrowded cells with no bedding, non-working sinks, and one sandwich a day, while denying requested medical care and menstrual products. Detainees described being locked in bathrooms with strangers of the opposite sex for up to 24 hours and being released into the cold at night with no way home. DHS disputed the allegations, saying ICE holds "higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons."
2025 Events (5)
ICE and CoreCivic denied pregnant detainee's repeated pleas for medical care at Eloy, and she miscarried in custody
In late November 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Beatriz Pastrana Candela in Tempe, Arizona, and transferred her to the CoreCivic-operated Eloy Detention Center while she was nearly three months pregnant. Despite a positive intake pregnancy test and her repeated complaints of abdominal pain, medical and corrections staff at Eloy told her she was not pregnant and denied her requests to see a doctor until she miscarried. ICE has disputed that her requests for care were ignored, while Pastrana remains detained at Eloy months later.
Federal court found ICE detained immigrants beyond 12-hour limit, denied medical care at San Francisco holding facility
On November 25, 2025, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had routinely detained people beyond its own 12-hour limit -- some over 72 hours -- at its San Francisco field office at 630 Sansome Street, denying intake medical screening and prescribed medication and withholding beds and basic hygiene supplies while holding cells at frigid temperatures under continuous lighting. Pitts provisionally certified two detainee classes and granted a preliminary injunction ordering ICE to remedy the conditions immediately, in a suit brought by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Central American Resource Center of Northern California, and the ACLU of Northern California.
ICE denied Greggy Sorio medical care for months at Tacoma detention facility, causing partial foot amputations
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's "pattern of failures" in treating Greggy Sorio, a Filipino lawful permanent resident held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, left him hospitalized on October 22, 2025, after months of denied care for reported bleeding and pain beginning around mid-2025; doctors diagnosed a bone infection and performed two amputation surgeries. ICE continued to pursue his deportation despite the injuries, attempting to remove him in early December 2025 before a court order temporarily blocked it. A federal judge in the Western District of Washington later ruled the facility's treatment unconstitutional and ordered Sorio's release on February 13, 2026.
ICE left detainees without a functioning medical-payment system for ten months after VA ended its claims-processing role
The Department of Veterans Affairs abruptly ended its two-decade role processing ICE's offsite medical-care payments on October 3, 2025, after political pressure and a lawsuit from a conservative advocacy group; ICE itself called the loss an "absolute emergency" that would "delay critical medical care" and risk detainees' "health, welfare, and lives." Ten months later, ICE's replacement contractor, Acentra Health, had received $44.6 million of a $67.5 million no-bid contract but had paid offsite medical providers zero dollars after missing multiple promised start dates, a gap that coincided with a separate Senate investigation documenting dozens of cases of untreated or unmanaged medical conditions in ICE custody.
ICE and LaSalle Corrections denied pregnant detainee prenatal care at Louisiana facility; she delivered a stillborn baby
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its contractor, LaSalle Corrections, denied Iris Dayana Monterroso Lemus, a pregnant Guatemalan detainee, adequate prenatal care during her detention at Richwood Correctional Center in Richwood, Louisiana, and she delivered a stillborn baby on April 29, 2025, after days of unaddressed complaints that she had stopped feeling fetal movement. Federal records later obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request showed no completed ultrasound or OB-GYN visit, contradicting a later DHS public denial that she lacked care.