ICE Detention Centers Are Killing People Through Medical Neglect -- And Habeas Petitions Are the Only Escape

Messages in Lotion Bottles

Since November 2025, people detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California have been throwing notes over cement walls and barbed wire fences, attached to lotion bottles and other objects. The messages reach weekly vigil attendees outside the facility. One note read simply: "We are all constantly sick."

That's not hyperbole. It's the reality of medical care in ICE detention under the Trump administration -- and it's killing people.

Ms. A.H., an asylum-seeker in her 50s who fled decades of violence and sexual assault by Colombian paramilitary forces, was one of those detainees. After resettling in San Diego, she had finally begun healing with therapy and medication. Then ICE arrested her at a routine immigration court hearing, surrounding her with nine officers and transporting her to Otay Mesa in shackles.

Inside, her mental health care evaporated. The detention center never provided her prescribed medications. Instead, staff gave her drugs that left her feeling "out of it" with constant stomach pain. Her nightmares and panic attacks returned, occurring multiple times per week. She couldn't sleep. The trauma she had worked so hard to overcome came flooding back.

Thanks to attorneys from the National Immigration Law Center filing a habeas corpus petition, Ms. A.H. is now free. But over 68,000 people remain trapped in similar conditions across the country.

A System Designed to Harm

Medical neglect in ICE detention isn't an accident or an oversight. It's systematic, and ICE knows exactly what it's doing.

Human Rights Watch has documented countless cases where officers and medical staff refused to provide detained immigrants with prescribed medications. In one instance, an officer's failure to provide insulin to a woman with diabetes resulted in her hospitalization.

The limited medical providers in detention centers routinely mismanage psychiatric medications -- when they provide any at all. When detainees request mental health care or display symptoms, officers often respond by throwing them into solitary confinement for weeks. The United Nations has determined that prolonged solitary confinement constitutes torture.

This isn't just cruel. It's deadly.

The ACLU found that inadequate mental health care "has led to a precipitous rise in the rate of deaths by suicide in ICE detention." Between 2017 and 2021, 95 percent of deaths in immigration detention "likely could have been prevented if ICE had provided clinically appropriate medical care."

Thirty-two people died in immigration detention in 2025 -- the highest number in over two decades. At least 12 died by suicide. Black immigrants face disproportionate rates of harm and abuse in these facilities.

And ICE is cooking the books. The agency deliberately releases some immigrants just before they're likely to die, ensuring their deaths won't be counted as "in custody." The real death toll is higher than reported.

Habeas Corpus: A Legal Lifeline

For many detained immigrants, habeas corpus petitions have become the only path to survival. These petitions demand that the government prove it has lawful authority to detain someone. If successful, a court issues a writ of habeas corpus ordering either release or a bond hearing.

The number of habeas petitions has skyrocketed since Trump's second term began, driven by a massive increase in ICE arrests nationwide. The administration has also implemented a new policy drastically limiting detained immigrants' eligibility for bond. A recent court decision upheld this policy, making it easier to indefinitely detain people in Texas and Louisiana -- the states with the highest and second-highest detention populations.

Between January and December 2025, the number of people in ICE detention increased by almost 75 percent. Trump failed to reach his goal of detaining over 100,000 people by January 2026, but he's well on his way.

The connection to deportations is clear. In November 2025, for every person released from ICE custody, approximately 14 others were deported -- up from a ratio of 1 release per 1.6 deportations a year earlier. Increased detention directly fuels the administration's mass deportation agenda.

The Work Continues

More lawyers are taking on habeas cases pro bono, and more people are donating to support this work. That's encouraging. But it shouldn't be necessary.

Immigrants with medical needs should receive humane treatment without requiring legal intervention to escape life-threatening neglect. Instead, we have a system where private prison companies like CoreCivic profit from warehousing human beings in conditions that cause preventable deaths.

Ms. A.H. is free. Over 1,400 people remain detained at Otay Mesa alone, and over 68,000 nationwide. In the first three months of 2026, at least 14 people have already died in immigration detention. If this rate continues, 2026 will exceed last year's record death toll.

Those notes thrown over barbed wire fences aren't just messages. They're evidence of a deliberate system of cruelty that treats immigrants as disposable. And the Trump administration is expanding it.