"It's Just Inhumane": Arizona Lawmakers Hear Testimonies of Deplorable Conditions in ICE Detention Centers

Medical neglect. Physical abuse from guards. Contaminated water and rotten food. Overcrowded cells with metal beds and filthy clothes. This is what people are enduring inside ICE detention centers in Arizona, according to testimonies heard at a congressional briefing in Phoenix on Thursday.

U.S. Representatives Yassamin Ansari (D-3), Adelita Grijalva (D-7), and Greg Stanton (D-4) organized the town hall at Phoenix Elementary School District offices after a surge in reported deaths and inhumane conditions across the country's 360-plus detention facilities. Since January 2025 alone, at least 45 people have died in ICE custody, according to data from Freedom for Immigrants.

The briefing brought together immigration advocates, attorneys, family members of detainees, and former detainees to answer questions from concerned Phoenix residents about the growing detention infrastructure in their state.

A System That Doesn't Respect Its Duty of Care

Phillip Rody, a representative from the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, painted a grim picture of conditions inside Arizona's existing detention centers in Eloy and Florence.

"Under this administration, increased immigration enforcement has also led to a dramatic over-population of these detention centers. And this is really just not a space issue, this is a public health issue that threatens the well-being of individuals who are detained," Rody explained.

He warned that a new facility planned for Surprise will likely replicate the same failures: "I don't think there's any reason to believe that this facility in Surprise will be any different than what we see in Eloy and Florence. I really think people should expect to see similar things as what I've described — a facility that fundamentally doesn't respect the duty of care that ICE has to people in its custody."

Deaths and Neglect in Arizona Facilities

The human cost of these conditions is already visible in Arizona. Arbella 'Yari' Rodriguez Marquez, a lesbian woman with leukemia, is currently being held at the Eloy Detention Center without access to proper medical care as her health declines.

Emmanuel Damas, a Haitian asylum-seeker, died at the Florence Correctional Center from an untreated tooth infection — a preventable death that underscores the medical negligence detainees face.

"There's so many things that happen in this administration that have not happened before. I know that we've always had an issue with private prisons, but in this case, the abuses are really significant," Grijalva told CALO News after the briefing.

"When you hear the fact that people are eating rotten food, not purified water, have horrible conditions, [are] getting clothes that are dirty back to wear. I mean, the amount of germs and infection that are happening on a regular basis, you see that translated in the number of people that have died in detention and how that continues to increase."

Expansion Despite the Crisis

Despite mounting evidence of dangerous conditions, the Department of Homeland Security has designated two new sites for additional detention centers in Surprise and Marana. The expansion has alarmed Phoenix community members, who are concerned not only about proximity to their neighborhoods but about the safety of those who will be imprisoned there.

The testimonies heard Thursday made clear that Arizona's detention system is not just failing to meet basic standards of care — it's actively endangering lives. Detainees described drinking unfiltered, dirty water, sleeping on small metal beds in overcrowded cells, and being denied access to legal representation while enduring verbal and physical abuse from guards.

A Pattern of Cruelty

The conditions described at the briefing fit a broader pattern of cruelty and neglect in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement apparatus. As ICE has ramped up arrests and detention, the infrastructure meant to house detainees has become dangerously overcrowded and under-resourced — or more accurately, deliberately under-resourced, as private prison companies profit from contracts to warehouse human beings in substandard conditions.

The Arizona representatives' town hall represents an attempt at oversight in a system that has largely operated without meaningful accountability. But oversight alone won't save lives if the fundamental structure remains unchanged: a for-profit detention system that treats human beings as inventory, where medical care is an afterthought and deaths are treated as acceptable collateral damage.

As Grijalva put it, the abuses are "really significant" — and they're getting worse. The question now is whether Congress will act to impose real consequences, or whether the body count will simply continue to rise while new facilities open their doors.