{"id":409829,"date":"2026-08-18T13:54:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/409829\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T13:54:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:54:31","slug":"inside-ices-broken-system-for-inspecting-detention-facilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/409829\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside ICE\u2019s broken system for inspecting detention facilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Isabel Del Mastro and Ren\u00e9 Kladzyk \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pogo.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Project on Government Oversight<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the inspectors came to Prairieland Detention Facility, pancakes appeared on the breakfast menu, Leqaa Kordia recalled. The walls sported a fresh coat of paint. A new water cooler appeared in the intake room. In the days before the inspection in December 2025, Kordia \u2013 who had been held at the Texas ICE facility for nine months at that point \u2013 said she observed a dramatic transformation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A sub-agency of ICE, the Office of Detention Oversight is required to inspect detention facilities like Prairieland, making sure conditions are safe and align with detention standards. If a facility gets a failing inspection grade twice in a row, its contract with ICE is supposed to be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/PLAW-117publ103\/pdf\/PLAW-117publ103.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defunded and terminated<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kordia, a Palestinian woman who was detained by ICE in March 2025 for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/ckgzdkg0q9go\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">overstaying her student visa<\/a> and incarcerated at Prairieland for a year, described the conditions there as humiliating and horrible. She recalled medical complaints going ignored, tap water with \u201cthings swimming in it,\u201d and dorm rooms that smelled like \u201cyou\u2019re sitting, sleeping, eating in a big bathroom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kordia decided to tell the ODO inspectors about her concerns, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the course of multiple conversations, she alerted them about the poor water quality, violations of her religious rights through a lack of Halal food or access to a Quran, and about her concerns over medical care at the facility, she recalled in an interview with POGO Investigates. She had her own health scare, when she\u2019d endured a terrible fever that she said worsened because she was ignored and denied medical care. She ultimately ended up in the hospital after suffering a seizure and was chained to the hospital bed, she said, \u201clike an animal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGO Investigates spoke with multiple attorneys whose clients had similar allegations of medical neglect, poor food quality, and lack of religious accommodations while detained at Prairieland. Conditions at the facility were also the subject of a March <a href=\"https:\/\/veasey.house.gov\/media-center\/press-releases\/congressman-veasey-visits-prairieland-detention-center\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">congressional oversight visit<\/a> by Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scott Sutterfield, a former senior ICE official and spokesperson for LaSalle Corrections, the private prison company that runs Prairieland, emailed POGO Investigates a blanket denial of all allegations about the facility in this investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe take any concerns about the welfare of individuals in our care very seriously,\u201d he said, emphasizing that the facility is regularly inspected \u201cby both internal and external bodies.\u201d Sutterfield has not responded to a request for clarification and information about complaints filed by Kordia while detained at Prairieland, including whether they were investigated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kordia said the inspectors assured her that Prairieland\u2019s issues would be fixed, and people would be held accountable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBut none of this happened,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A month later, ODO published its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ice.gov\/doclib\/foia\/odo-compliance-inspections\/PrairielandDetFacAlvaradoTX_Dec16-18_2025.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">inspection report of the facility<\/a>. Prairieland received a \u201cSuperior\u201d rating: the highest possible grade for a detention facility. In the report, ODO indicated its inspectors had interviewed 38 people held at Prairieland, all of whom \u201creported satisfaction\u201d with the facility. The report indicated that the facility hadn\u2019t violated a single standard: perfect marks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This dynamic isn\u2019t unique to Prairieland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s part of a nationwide system set up in a way that ensures most ICE detention facilities stay open, no matter how bad the conditions. That\u2019s according to former ICE officials, immigration data experts, advocates, lawyers, and people recently held in detention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">POGO Investigates and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University compiled and analyzed data from ODO\u2019s inspection reports website to identify recent trends in how ICE rates its facilities. Judging from detention inspection data from the beginning of fiscal year 2022 through July 23, 2026, ICE facility conditions appear to have undergone a dramatic improvement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE is identifying fewer problems in facilities across the board. Called \u201cdeficiencies,\u201d these violations to detention standards are used to determine what grade a facility gets and whether it stays open. The number of these violations dropped by nearly 70% between fiscal years 2022 and 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, the proportion of ICE detention facilities receiving a \u201cSuperior\u201d rating nearly tripled since fiscal year 2024 as of July 23, after declining by 61% between fiscal years 2022 and 2024. The recent spike in \u201cSuperior\u201d grades coincides with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/ice-says-relaxed-detention-standards-reduce-burden-contractors-running-rcna350510\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">increasingly weakened detention standards<\/a> and a drop in the overall number of inspections being conducted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE also doesn\u2019t give itself a failing grade on detention inspections. During the period analyzed, ICE never failed a \u201cdedicated\u201d ICE facility \u2014 one that solely incarcerates people in ICE custody. Of the few facilities that did receive a failing grade, all were \u201cnon-dedicated\u201d facilities, typically county and municipal jails holding a mixture of imprisoned U.S. citizens and people detained by ICE.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inadequate oversight has clear ties to unsafe and even deadly conditions in detention, according to Scott Shuchart, a former senior advisor for the Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe amount of oversight has been scaled back irresponsibly,\u201d he said. The outcome, according to Shuchart, is that \u201cICE detention seems to be more dangerous and working worse than ever before.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since the start of the second Trump administration, DHS has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epi.org\/policywatch\/trump-administration-closes-three-dhs-offices-focused-on-civil-rights-and-oversight\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shuttered several key oversight offices<\/a>. Meanwhile, the number of people detained by ICE increased by 75% during the first year of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term in office and reached a record high early this year with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vera.org\/news\/ten-things-veras-ice-detention-trends-dashboard-reveals-about-ice-detention-through-march-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">73,400 people in ICE detention on a single day<\/a>. As of July 11, over 65,000 people were being incarcerated by ICE, 70.6% of whom had no criminal conviction, according to TRAC reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE does not publish a dataset dedicated to ODO inspections that would enable the public to garner insights about trends in inspection ratings or standards violations. For this investigation, data points were pulled from individual inspection report PDFs on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ice.gov\/foia\/odo-facility-inspections\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ODO\u2019s website<\/a> to create a dataset of inspection report ratings and violations of detention standards from fiscal years 2022 through July 23, 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE has not responded to multiple requests for interview and comment related to this investigation, its methodology, and data findings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former ICE acting Chief of Staff Deborah Fleischaker said she wasn\u2019t surprised by the glowing marks facilities are receiving in recent inspection reports, though they don\u2019t necessarily seem accurate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI would not be surprised if ODO understood its job to be to bless most of what they see and only say anything in the most significant circumstances,\u201d she said. \u201cI think there is an understanding that they need to get out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Superior Ratings, Record Deaths in Custody\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kordia was \u201cvery disappointed\u201d to learn that, after her conversations with the inspectors, ODO ended up giving Prairieland perfect marks in their 2026 inspection report, she said. \u201cSuperior\u201d \u2014 the highest rating possible \u2014 was a significant jump from Prairieland\u2019s previous rating, \u201cAcceptable\/Adequate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prairieland\u2019s recently improved score is emblematic of a broader trend in ODO facility ratings. Although 70% of facilities received \u201cSuperior\u201d ratings in fiscal year 2022, when ODO began using this rating system, the number of \u201cSuperior\u201d ratings declined from fiscal years 2023 to 2024. Then, the share of facilities getting ODO\u2019s highest grade doubled between fiscal years 2024 and 2025. As of July 23, roughly 74% of detention facility inspections in fiscal year 2026 have resulted in a \u201cSuperior\u201d rating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As \u201cSuperior\u201d ratings have increased across detention facilities nationally, so have deaths in ICE custody. In 2025, ICE reported that 33 people died in its custody, the highest number of any year in <a href=\"https:\/\/uclaprisondata.org\/ice-deaths-in-custody\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">over two decades<\/a>. As of August 11, ICE reported the deaths of 23 people in 2026. The agency announced in June that it will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/06\/05\/us\/ice-death-reports-recently-released-detainees-hnk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stop reporting deaths of those who die<\/a> shortly after being released from ICE\u2019s custody.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/relevant-research.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ICE data expert<\/a> Adam Sawyer, this trend doesn\u2019t make sense. He said you\u2019d expect an inverse relationship between improved inspection ratings and increased deaths in custody.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou would not expect the number of deaths to go up along with the assessed conditions of those facilities,\u201d Sawyer explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Border czar Tom Homan defended ICE in response to questions about the rising number of deaths in detention during an interview with CBS News in May. \u201cOur deaths in custody are lower than everybody\u2019s,\u201d Homan said, adding that many of the people detained in ICE facilities have poor medical histories. \u201cWhat the media don\u2019t talk about [is] how many lives do we save in custody,\u201d Homan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE detention expert and immigration lawyer Andrew Free refuted Homan\u2019s claims in a <a href=\"https:\/\/detentionkills.substack.com\/p\/the-better-question?utm_source=podcast-email&amp;publication_id=1164525&amp;post_id=197260600&amp;r=3m7gg6&amp;utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&amp;utm_content=watch_now_button&amp;triedRedirect=true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">video response on his Substack<\/a>, arguing that the DHS official\u2019s talking points about deaths in ICE custody are a \u201cgross over-generalization\u201d relying on false comparisons and arguments that are factually unsupported.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four people have died since last August at Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, according to ICE\u2019s website. That\u2019s the most deaths at any facility in the country during that period, a POGO analysis found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ismael Ayala-Uribe, a Mexican immigrant and former DACA recipient who came to the U.S. as a child, was one of those people. He was detained at the car wash he worked at in Huntington Beach. He died at age 39 in ICE custody on September 22, 2025, from complications of an abscess on his buttock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff\u2019s Coroners Report, obtained by POGO through public records requests. The coroner\u2019s report indicated that Ayala-Uribe had complained of fever, shivers, and rectal bleeding for three weeks while detained at Adelanto.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFamily stated the ICE facility did not provide him with medical attention and were only administering Tylenol,\u201d the coroner\u2019s report noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Christopher Ferreira, a spokesperson for GEO Group, the private prison company that runs Adelanto, declined to comment on this investigation in an email to POGO, directing reporters\u2019 questions to ICE.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE did not respond to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE\u2019s detainee death report for Ayala-Uribe makes no mention of medical care following his initial screening on the day he arrived at Adelanto, until a \u201cmedical emergency\u201d in his dorm four days before his death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ODO officials <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ice.gov\/doclib\/foia\/odo-compliance-inspections\/AdelantoProcessingCenterAdelantoCA-September-16-18-2025.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">inspected Adelanto<\/a> just days before Ayala-Uribe\u2019s death and gave the facility zero violations for medical care and a rating of \u201cGood.\u201d The report noted, \u201cmost detainees reported satisfaction with facility services.\u201d Adelanto\u2019s fiscal year 2025 rating of \u201cGood\u201d was a downgrade. From fiscal years 2022 to 2024, the facility had consistently received \u201cSuperior\u201d ratings by ODO. As of August 11, ODO had not yet published a 2026 inspection report for Adelanto.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another official inspection of the facility that same year arrived at starkly different conclusions. The California Department of Justice inspected Adelanto in July 2025, finding inadequate medical and detention staffing levels, failures to do consistent medical, dental, and mental health screenings, and failures to provide \u201cnecessary and timely medical treatment, even for emergency care.\u201d (California is one of the first states to conduct inspections of ICE detention facilities; most don\u2019t.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The California attorney general is not the only one to contradict ODO\u2019s findings about Adelanto. Advocacy groups, attorneys, people held at Adelanto, and lawmakers have consistently decried substandard and dangerous conditions at the facility, all while ODO painted a rosy picture in reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Disability Rights California, a California-based advocacy group with legal authority to conduct inspections of ICE facilities, also identified issues with medical neglect and substandard conditions in a 2025 inspection of Adelanto. Paula Sandoval, a supervising investigator at Disability Rights California, told POGO Investigates that Adelanto\u2019s history of \u201cSuperior\u201d and \u201cGood\u201d ratings by ODO did not sound accurate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf this is what they claim is \u2026 \u2018Superior,\u2019 and if they\u2019re inspecting facilities nationwide, I cannot imagine what those other facilities are like,\u201d Sandoval said in an interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Steffel, an attorney who said she has visited Adelanto at least five times this year, argues the characterization of medical care at Adelanto in ODO\u2019s report is \u201cblatantly untrue.\u201d Steffel is an attorney in a lawsuit against Adelanto over conditions at the facility. A federal judge <a href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/justice\/2026\/07\/judge-adelanto-conditions-injunction\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently ruled in the case<\/a> that people detained at the facility must be provided sufficient medical care and clean drinking water.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey have this mechanism to do inspections and to make sure that people aren\u2019t literally dying, but they\u2019re not doing that,\u201d Steffel said when asked why accurate inspections would be meaningful. She said she believes Adelanto should have failed two inspections by now, which would mean it would lose federal funding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But in recent years, not a single dedicated ICE detention facility like Adelanto has failed an inspection.<\/p>\n<p>ICE Doesn\u2019t Give Itself a Failing Grade\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The federal government designated inspection failures as a key threshold to hold ICE detention facilities accountable in cases of unsafe conditions: If a detention facility fails inspections twice in a row, it can lose eligibility for federal funding and be shut down, according to an appropriations <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/PLAW-117publ103\/pdf\/PLAW-117publ103.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">measure passed by Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is important that chronic failures to meet detention standards are not ignored,\u201d the House report accompanying the bill stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite this provision \u2014 or perhaps because of it \u2014 detention facilities rarely received failing grades from inspectors between fiscal years 2022 and 2026. Detention facilities saw the highest number of failing grades in 2023, when 10% of the 113 inspected facilities failed their inspection reports. Only one of the 102 inspections conducted in fiscal year 2025 resulted in a failure. As of July 23, every detention facility passed their inspection for fiscal year 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ODO\u2019s inspection report data also shows that, since fiscal year 2022, facilities used solely for ICE detention have never failed an inspection.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Non-dedicated facilities, which incarcerate a mix of people held by the county or municipality for criminal charges and people detained by ICE, now face less scrutiny by ODO than in past years. Formerly, Congress mandated that any facility incarcerating 10 or more people for ICE for over 72 hours had to conduct inspections twice a year. But ICE changed that in 2025 after Congress didn\u2019t require inspections in the new funding bill, according to reporting by CBS News. ODO now must inspect dedicated facilities only once per year and non-dedicated facilities every other year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Between fiscal years 2022 and 2026, only six facilities failed two inspections in a row: Baldwin County Correctional Center in Alabama; Randall County Jail in Texas; Cache County Jail in Utah; Cobb County Jail in Georgia; and Elmore County Jail and Minicassia Detention Center in Idaho. Even though the DHS provision indicates they should have lost federal funding and their contract with ICE, five of those six facilities are currently used for ICE detention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shuchart said he\u2019s not surprised. \u201cThe failure mechanism that Congress has put in has literally never worked,\u201d he said, \u201cThey\u2019ve always allowed ICE to get away with granting waivers or excusing (violations).\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE can grant waivers for facilities, \u201cin essence exempting the facility from compliance\u201d with detention standards, according to a 2018 report by the DHS inspector general\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMushy\u201d Standards<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE designs the standards that detention facilities are held to, and those standards are then used to determine what rating a facility gets and whether it passes or fails an inspection. According to former senior ICE official Claire Trickler-McNulty, these standards are part of the problem when it comes to facilities actually being held accountable for poor conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ICE subjects different facilities to different sets of detention standards, which have become increasingly watered down over the years, according to former senior ICE officials. In fiscal year 2026, POGO Investigates found that ICE detention facilities were inspected using six different sets of detention standards, based on the year the facility signed a contract with ICE. These include the newest 2026 standards, which ICE described as streamlined.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The differences in these standards can be significant for the people held by ICE: The new 2026 standards, for example, removed protections that would require detained people to be paid for participating in the facility\u2019s \u201cVoluntary Work Program.\u201d The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/2026\/06\/16\/ice-removed-detainee-protections-after-private-outreach-top-contractor\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post reported<\/a> this change was made after ICE contractor GEO Group privately asked for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are numerous cases of ICE detention standards shifting away from specificity in recent years, removing clear requirements for maintaining safe conditions, including how often certain aspects of the facility should be inspected and by whom. For example, the 2011 standards required a state laboratory to test the water in ICE detention facilities every year. The 2026 standards removed the annual requirement and omitted the mandate that a state laboratory (i.e., an independent body) do the testing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although ICE did not respond to interview and comment requests for this investigation, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ice.gov\/detain\/detention-management\/2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">agency\u2019s website<\/a> indicates that the revised 2026 standards are intended to \u201creduce the burden on detention operators.\u201d The introduction of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ice.gov\/doclib\/detention-standards\/2026\/nds2026.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2026 standards<\/a> indicates that \u201cDetention conditions shall be non-punitive and ensure the due process, health, safety, and security of all individuals in custody.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ODO\u2019s use of varying detention standards is no accident, according to Trickler-McNulty, who said the standards are \u201ca mess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhen you make the standards language mushy, it\u2019s very hard to translate that into actual inspection findings and inspection findings that could be leveraged against the facilities,\u201d TricklerMcNulty said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fleischaker tied the expansion of detention under the Trump administration directly to watered down ICE standards for inspections. \u201cThey want to be able to have more detention facilities. They want to be able to do it cheaper. They want to be able to do it faster and simpler,\u201d she said. \u201cThat means it is difficult to live up to the more robust detention standards.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A Steep Drop in Violations\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alma Bowman has been detained by ICE multiple times, despite filing court petitions arguing she is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpb.org\/news\/2025\/07\/17\/macon-woman-spent-her-life-thinking-she-was-us-citizen-then-ice-detained-her-twice\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">actually a U.S. citizen<\/a>. She was most recently detained at Stewart Detention Center in Georgia for eight months in 2025, and, prior to that, at Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia for over three years. There, she was one of the whistleblowers whose testimony led to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hsgac.senate.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/imo\/media\/doc\/2022-11-15%20PSI%20Staff%20Report%20-%20Medical%20Mistreatment%20of%20Women%20in%20ICE%20Detention.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Senate committee investigation<\/a> which found that the facility subjected women to \u201cexcessive, invasive, and often unnecessary gynecological procedures.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During an interview, we informed Bowman that Stewart Detention Center had received no violations for medical care in fiscal year 2025, the time she was there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s really funny,\u201d Bowman said, laughing. She recalled how people detained there who were sick were \u201clucky if you get seen within a week.\u201d Bowman has sleep apnea and uses a CPAP machine to sleep. She described extensive difficulties in obtaining permission to plug in her machine at night. She is also a diabetic, but when she was first detained at Stewart, she didn\u2019t have her diabetes medication on her. She said it took about a month before she was able to see a doctor, and that she also faced delays in getting medication.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the standards that ODO used to evaluate Stewart in fiscal year 2025, people who take medications are supposed to be seen by a health care professional no more than 24 hours after arriving at the facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ryan Gustin, spokesperson for Stewart contractor CoreCivic, said the contention that ODO inspection findings don\u2019t reflect on-the-ground conditions \u201cdoes not hold\u201d at Stewart. He cited ODO\u2019s inspection report as evidence that Stewart\u2019s medical care is not deficient. Gustin disputed all of Bowman\u2019s claims, arguing that people detained at the facility have daily access to medical care, that people with diabetes get \u201cblood sugar testing, insulin and diabetic medications,\u201d and that accommodations are made for CPAP machines. In Bowman\u2019s case, he said she \u201cwas regularly monitored by facility medical staff, with all known medical issues being addressed.\u201d He also said the facility\u2019s medical care receives \u201clayered, continuous oversight,\u201d including government monitoring and audits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/ice-detention-center-911-emergencies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">media reports<\/a> about the facility also allege substandard medical care, and a Senate investigation led by Senator Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, details medical neglect at facilities that include Stewart. In July, 29-year-old Prisciliano Trejo Ricano <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/atlanta\/news\/man-diagnosed-with-leukemia-dies-after-time-in-ice-custody-at-georgias-stewart-detention-center-advocates-say\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">died after he was allegedly denied medical care<\/a> while detained at Stewart.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gustin said he is \u201cdeeply saddened\u201d by the passing of any person in CoreCivic\u2019s care, but that Trejo Ricano was \u201cappropriately screened\u201d and no medical problems were disclosed or identified. Trejo had posted on Facebook about the lack of medical care at Stewart prior to his death, according to reporting by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2026\/08\/the-deaths-ice-doesnt-count\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mother Jones<\/a>. He was diagnosed with acute leukemia and released from ICE\u2019s custody while in a coma. His death does not appear in ICE\u2019s official tally of deaths because he was no longer officially in ICE custody at the time of his death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nationwide, the average number of detention inspection violations dropped by nearly 70% between fiscal years 2022 and 2025. Between fiscal years 2024 and 2025, the average number of violations dropped by more than half \u2014 the largest year-over-year drop from 2022 to 2026. During this same time period, there has also been a significant drop in the number of initial and follow-up inspections of ICE detention facilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In July, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/ice-detention-facilities-inspection-policy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CBS News<\/a> published an investigation on violation trends in ODO inspection reports compared to facility size. While the number of reported violations generally trended downward since 2019, they found that the number of violations at larger facilities has trended upward since fiscal year 2025. They also found that when facilities switched to using the May 2025 U.S. Marshals Service\u2019s standards, the average number of violations dropped sharply.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even when a detention facility does receive many violations, ICE may not have the infrastructure needed to take action. ICE\u2019s process to remediate problems found in detention facilities has \u201cnever worked,\u201d according to Shuchart.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere is no office in (Enforcement and Removal Operations) that is equipped with enough people or enough power to take the result of an ODO inspection \u2026 and really fix all the problems,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s also unclear what kind of relationship a facility\u2019s violations have with the ultimate rating they receive, in part because the rubrics for how ratings are determined are not made public.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pogo.org\/investigates\/troubled-ice-medical-provider-remains-at-camp-east-montana-despite-outcry\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Camp East Montana in El Paso<\/a>, Texas, received an \u201cAcceptable\/Adequate\u201d rating despite having 49 standards violations listed in the 2026 inspection report, among the highest number of violations in a single report of any facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the period analyzed, only three other detention facilities \u2014 Euless City Jail in Texas, River Correctional Center in Louisiana, and Allen Parish Public Safety Complex in Louisiana \u2014 received as many violations and still passed the inspection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of the 15 facilities with the most violations between fiscal years 2022 and 2026, eight were rated either \u201cAcceptable\/Adequate\u201d or \u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meghan Squires, an assistant director at the Government Accountability Office who worked on a 2025 report about ICE\u2019s facility inspection program, said the relationship between a facility\u2019s total number of standards violations and what rating that facility gets \u201cdoesn\u2019t quite make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou can get a lot of (violations) but still pass,\u201d she said, explaining that even though the GAO identified over 5,000 violations in fiscal years 2022 through 2024, most facilities passed. \u201cThat, I think, is hard to square up.\u201d Squires said the GAO did not have access to the worksheet that ODO used at the time to conduct inspections.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cODO officials told us that the strategic goal of the inspection program has been to ensure the health, life, safety, and welfare of detained individuals,\u201d the GAO report reads, explaining that ODO has not adopted any performance goals or measures to ensure that actually happens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The GAO also issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/assets\/gao-26-108886.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">separate report<\/a> in June about oversight failures at Camp East Montana, finding that the facility did not meet ICE\u2019s National Detention Standards and didn\u2019t conduct required inspections. In a written response to the report, DHS Director of Financial Management Jeffrey Bobich emphasized that the average time a person is detained at Camp East Montana is low, and said, \u201cDHS remains committed to protecting America by enforcing immigration laws.\u201d As of July 9, the <a href=\"https:\/\/detentionreports.com\/facility\/EROFCB.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">average detention period<\/a> at Camp East Montana is 12 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among the GAO\u2019s recommendations to DHS, there was one the agency refused to adopt. It would have entailed reinstating a sub-agency that conducted inspections at detention facilities. That sub-agency was one of several DHS oversight bodies that were shuttered in 2026. As ICE arrests record numbers of people and detains them in detention facilities, the agency has struggled to leverage detention standards in a way that would hold detention facilities accountable, according to Trickler-McNulty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s a million ways detention can be bad, or miserable, or hard,\u201d said the former senior ICE official, \u201cand without really understanding all of the things that are happening at a facility and doing a robust accounting, certainly, conditions can get very bad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For people who have been detained by ICE, like Leqaa Kordia, these failures to create and uphold adequate standards have very real implications.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re talking about people\u2019s lives,\u201d Kordia said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about people\u2019s dignity. We\u2019re talking about people\u2019s freedom being taken away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Isabel Del Mastro and Ren\u00e9 Kladzyk \/ Project on Government Oversight When the inspectors came to Prairieland&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-409829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}