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POGO investigation found ICE inflated detention facility ratings while cutting inspections and weakening standards

A Project On Government Oversight investigation with American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop, published August 18, 2026, found that ICE's Office of Detention Oversight nearly tripled "Superior" ratings for detention facilities since fiscal year 2024 while recorded violations fell nearly 70 percent between fiscal years 2022 and 2025. The investigation found ICE eliminated a congressional twice-yearly inspection requirement in 2025 and adopted 2026 detention standards that dropped mandatory water testing and detainee wage protections, even as a California Department of Justice report, a federal judge's order, and Disability Rights California documented ongoing medical-care and water-quality failures at facilities ICE rated favorably. The detained population passed 65,000 in 2026, and 2025 was the deadliest year in ICE custody since 2004.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On August 18, 2026, the Project On Government Oversight, working with American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop, published an investigation finding that ICE's own Office of Detention Oversight issued increasingly favorable ratings to detention facilities even as conditions worsened. The share of facilities receiving ODO's top "Superior" rating nearly tripled since fiscal year 2024, and recorded deficiencies fell by nearly 70 percent between fiscal years 2022 and 2025, with facilities almost never receiving a failing grade -- a designation that can trigger loss of a facility's federal contract after two consecutive failures.

The investigation found two concurrent changes behind the shift. ICE eliminated a congressional requirement for twice-yearly facility inspections in 2025 after Congress did not renew it in a funding bill, cutting many facilities to one inspection a year or less. Separately, ICE's revised 2026 detention standards dropped mandatory state-laboratory water testing and detainee wage-program protections; a former senior ICE official described the new standards language as deliberately "mushy" and hard to translate into inspection findings.

External reviews contradicted ODO's favorable findings at specific facilities. A California Department of Justice report released May 2026 found inadequate medical and detention staffing and failures to provide timely medical treatment at Adelanto ICE Processing Center, which ODO had rated "Superior" in fiscal years 2022 through 2024; a federal judge separately ordered Adelanto in July 2026 to provide adequate medical care and clean water, and Disability Rights California called ODO's assessment of the facility "blatantly untrue." ICE's detained population passed 65,000 in mid-2026, and 2025 was the deadliest year in ICE custody since 2004, with 32 deaths -- nearly triple 2024's total. ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

Why we recorded this

Government oversight of detention facilities only works if inspection findings reflect actual conditions, not administrative convenience. ICE's own inspection office nearly tripled "Superior" facility ratings and cut recorded violations by nearly 70 percent after ICE eliminated a congressional twice-yearly inspection mandate and rewrote its standards to drop water-testing and wage requirements, even as outside reviewers documented the same facilities' medical and water-quality failures. This erodes the norm of government data integrity because it lets an agency erase evidence of its own noncompliance by redefining what its inspection record can capture, rather than by fixing the conditions the record exists to expose.

Sources

  1. Inside ICE's Broken System for Inspecting Detention Facilities — Project On Government Oversight investigative accessed August 18, 2026
  2. Inside ICE's broken system for inspecting detention facilities — El Paso Matters / Project On Government Oversight investigative accessed August 18, 2026
  3. ICE gives detention centers high marks for health under Trump even as deaths climb, report finds — CalMatters secondary accessed August 18, 2026
  4. "Cruel, Inhumane, and Unacceptable": Attorney General Bonta Releases Fifth Report on Conditions at Immigration Detention Facilities in California — California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General primary accessed August 18, 2026

See also