Reporting on immigration detention conditions
- Moderator: Renuka Rayasam,senior correspondent, KFF Health News; AHCJ board member
- Katherine Peeler,medical advisor, Physicians for Human Rights
- Michelle Brané, director, Together and Free
- Linus Chan, J.D., James H. Binger Clinical Professor of Law, University of Minnesota
Severe overcrowding, understaffing and poor medical care — including delayed care and inadequate treatment — are leading to a record number of deaths and suicides in immigration detention facilities. That was one key takeaway from the session, “Reporting on immigration detention conditions,” at HJ26
Panelist Katherine Peeler, medical advisor with Physicians for Human Rights, highlighted the conditions and oversight of ICE detention centers and the challenges of accessing medical records of the detainees. She also talked about the importance of community organizations in monitoring the conditions at detention centers
“Medical care has always been poor in ICE detention centers,” Peeler said. And severe overcrowding has exacerbated the problem. Detention centers are using “batched medical screenings” to gather health histories, which she said is a bad strategy that can lead to ICE personnel providing medical care without a full understanding of the true baseline health of the people coming into detention
Linus Chan, a law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and clinic director representing people in detention, described the impact of the Metro Surge enforcement action in Minnesota, which he described as feeling like an occupation, and the rapid transfer of refugees
Metro Surge enforcement began on Dec. 1. Detention and transfer of refugees started in January, and it was fast: Some people were arrested in the morning and transferred by afternoon
“Everywhere, all at once, you were getting constant reports of people being taken,” Chan said.
Michelle Brané, director of Together & Free, described the dismantling of oversight mechanisms, including in the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. The latter was created in 2019 to investigate medical care of detainees, deaths, mistreatment and other issues. It was shut down in May 2026, and a lack of funding was blamed. The office received about 11,000 complaints each year
But the oversight that existed even prior to the Trump administration was insufficient and not very effective, Brané said
Here are some key steps reporters can take to report on medical neglect in local immigration detention facilities:
- Request a list of 911 calls/CAD logs from local facilities to local hospitals from whichever entity runs the local EMS dispatch.
- File FOIA requests for DHS/ICE documents when preparing for long-format stories.
- Talk to ex-government officials who are now more willing to talk than they were a year ago.
- Contact local immigration attorneys and nonprofits for sources and case leads.
- Use websites like Court Listener, Habeas Dockets, as well as PACER, or visit courthouses to get documents that are not accessible online.
- Syracuse University maintains the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a collection and analysis of records from the Department of Homeland Security and immigration courts.
- Talk to people who have been in detention facilities and their families to get firsthand accounts of conditions.
Deaths have surged in immigration detention facilities in the past year. Even as government oversight of immigration detention facilities has been dismantled, reporters can play a key role in providing sustained coverage of how conditions have deteriorated
Maria G Ortiz-Briones is a reporter based in California
