Inside an ICE Detention Center: Detained People Describe Severe Medical Neglect, Harrowing Conditions
When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Fernando Viera Reyes, his first concern was deportation. His second: prostate cancer.
“It’s one thing being healthy and going through that, but now there’s no medical attention,” Viera Reyes said. “I talked to guys who had been in detention. One guy said you’re not going to make it. You’re going to suffer.”
Viera Reyes is among seven people detained by ICE who sued the Trump administration on November 12 over inhumane conditions at the privately owned California City Detention Facility. The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit with the support of the ACLU, California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, Prison Law Office, and Keker Van Nest & Peters as a class action representing all people detained at California City. They cite punishing conditions, enforced isolation, neglect of people with disabilities, denial of access to counsel, and, as in Viera Reyes’ case, the facility’s terrifyingly inadequate medical care. ICE’s neglect of Viera Reyes’s medical condition is so severe that he filed an emergency motion.
Medical Neglect at ICE Detention Center
While he was detained in a different California immigration detention center in 2024, Viera Reyes was in agonizing pain, and had blood in his urine and stool. He underwent multiple tests that showed signs of prostate cancer. Viera Reyes has since been in an endless limbo of trying to get a final test: a biopsy to diagnose the cancer, so he can receive prompt treatment.
Detention administrators failed to get him that biopsy before he was transferred to California City Detention Facility, the largest immigration detention center in the state, in August 2025. Since his transfer, Viera Reyes’ barriers to treatment and painful uncertainty regarding his health have worsened. Not only has ICE thwarted his attempts to get a biopsy, Viera Reyes also cannot access the medication he needs to manage symptoms. He has had difficulty seeing a doctor, let alone a specialist. ICE also did not send his health care records with him when he was transferred from another ICE facility to California City, further delaying his treatment. At this point, he has reason to believe his cancer has spread.
Since Viera Reyes arrived at California City, his health has gotten worse. He stays in bed more than he used to. It’s difficult for him to use the bathroom without feeling pain and discomfort, especially without medication. Lately, a pulsating feeling has intensified.
“I was in prison for over 30 years,” Viera Reyes said. “The conditions at California City are worse.”
At least in prison there were fewer barriers to access medical care than he has faced in ICE detention. He was also able to work out, participate in classes and go to church. Now, all he can do to distract himself is watch television. “I always worry. My mind right now is racing,” he said. “We’re just stuck and the only thing that works a lot is our mind, the anxiety.”
Because the levels in his blood work that indicate illness are escalating, Viera Reyes has advocated constantly for his own wellbeing by putting in multiple emergency requests to see a urologist, but his requests have been ignored. When he reported the pain he was experiencing and asked for medication, the doctor prescribed him Vitamin C. Others told him to buy Tylenol from the commissary.
ICE Detention Center Violates Immigrant Rights and Basic Needs
Despite the egregious medical neglect Viera Reyes is experiencing, his story is just one among the hundreds of people detained at California City. Led by the people detained, the lawsuit unveils the myriad ways that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security fail to accommodate basic human needs for the people in their care.Fernando Gomez Ruiz, another person who is suing ICE alongside Viera Reyes, was repeatedly denied insulin, leading to elevated blood sugar levels. He also has an ulcer on his foot that he was not getting proper treatment for. Another plaintiff, Yuri Alexander Roque Campos, could not get his heart medications, even though he had two emergency room visits as soon as he arrived at the facility. The emergency room doctor told the facility that he urgently needed to see a cardiac specialist within 72 hours. He is still waiting for that specialist appointment three months later.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit also cite excessively restrictive and punitive conditions. For example, Gustavo Guevara Alarcon was placed in solitary confinement for asking to finish his shower.
“Sometimes it feels like they’re treating us like prisoners, but we’re not,” Viera Reyes said. “It’s like they want us to act like prisoners. They want us to be hostile, even for medical reasons, banging on the door and yelling.”
In addition to the severely broken medical system at California City, people with disabilities are denied basic accommodations, such as sign language interpreters and wheelchairs. One plaintiff in the lawsuit who is Deaf and only speaks in American Sign Language, Jose Ruiz Canizales, has only interacted with a sign language interpreter by the facility once, via video. It’s made him feel completely isolated. When he tried to communicate with staff, they would often shrug their shoulders, walk away, or laugh at him.
“So often what happens in a detention facility behind locked doors and barbed wire is invisible to the public,” said Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU National Prison Project. “It's really important that people know what's being done by our government in our name.”
Detained People Describe Punitive Treatment and Harsh Conditions
The facility holds people in small concrete cells the size of a parking space for hours on end without adequate clothing, food, or water. They deny people basic medical care, disability accommodations, and access to their lawyers and loved ones. Sewage bubbles up from the shower drains, and insects crawl up and down the walls of the cells in the decrepit facility. Officers threaten people who speak out against the abusive conditions with violence and solitary confinement, which they use excessively. Temperatures are frigid. Some wear socks on their arms as sleeves to stay warm.
California City previously operated as a state prison in the middle of the Mojave Desert managed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. ICE contracted with the for-profit company CoreCivic to re-open the prison as an immigration detention center this year. It can hold up to 2,560 immigrants in the facility. Since its re-opening, it has come under intense criticism, with people detained at California City describing the facility as a “torture chamber,” and community members expressing outrage over its deplorable conditions. Detained people also have engaged in numerous sit-ins and hunger strikes, including in mid-September, when over 100 people across several housing pods engaged in collective action to demand an end to many of the abuses the lawsuit challenges.
“It's important to remember we lawyers have the freedom to bring this lawsuit without facing many personal consequences,” Virgien said. “But for the people on the inside, they are standing up against the government while they are under complete control of the government. So the fact that they're willing to stand up even though they might face retaliation or harm is just truly impressive. I'm so honored to be able to fight alongside them.”
Immigrants Detained Struggle to Maintain Hope in the Face of Deportation and Mistreatment
While some have been empowered to fight back, pervasive fear and suffering have driven others to abandon their legal rights and agree to deportation.
One man at California City attempted suicide by hanging. He remains anonymous in the lawsuit. Another plaintiff, Sokhean Keo, who was friends with that man, saw his body hanging in the cell. The man survived and was transported to receive medical care. California City staff did not offer mental-health services to the people who had witnessed his suicide attempt. Instead, staff disciplined anyone who had not returned to their cells after the incident, people who remain haunted by the image of their friend’s body hanging in his cell.
Viera Reyes had heard that the man left a note that said he would rather die in America than be deported. “It triggered something in my mind like, ‘Wow, he has a point.’ I put myself in his shoes, because I know what’s going to happen to me if I get deported. But you start thinking about your family.”
At least two other detained people have attempted suicide, and others believe the number is higher. The desolation and desperation has rattled Viera Reyes. He said he tells other detained people in the facility: “Faith is going to have to be your base. Stand on that and believe that something is going to change,” he said. “I know I’m going through pain and I know they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do, but we have to have determination.”
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Press ReleaseDec 2025
Immigrants' Rights
Aclu Statement On House Passage Of H.r. 4371. Explore Press Release.ACLU Statement on House Passage of H.R. 4371
WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives today passed H.R. 4371, which would subject unaccompanied immigrant children to invasive body searches and prolonged immigration detention, preventing their release to loved ones in the U.S. Though the bill was narrowly passed, dozens of members who previously voted for extreme bills expanding mandatory detention rejected this dangerous bill, signaling a growing shift against the Trump administration’s extreme anti-immigrant agenda. If passed in the Senate, the bill would represent a major expansion of the Trump administration’s mass detention and deportation agenda. It would also lead to serious — and potentially permanent — psychological harm to children. Over the last several weeks, this administration has attempted to cut legal services for children who came alone to the U.S. and to coerce them into abandoning their due process and anti-trafficking protections. In response to this news, Sarah Mehta, deputy director of policy and government affairs, Equality division at the American Civil Liberties Union, had the following reaction: “H.R. 4371 would be a callous expansion of President Trump’s cruel detention agenda, targeting vulnerable children. This bill masquerades as protective legislation but would instead subject children to physical and psychological harm. “While the House narrowly passed this bill, we thank the Members of Congress who held the line and voted against this harmful legislation. Now more than ever, we need our elected officials to speak out against the Trump administration’s attempts to strip children of their rights and dignity, and to disappear them into detention.” -
News & CommentaryDec 2025
Immigrants' Rights
Detained Immigrants Detail Physical Abuse And Inhumane Conditions At Largest Immigration Detention Center In The U.s.. Explore News & Commentary.Detained Immigrants Detail Physical Abuse and Inhumane Conditions at Largest Immigration Detention Center in the U.S.
In a letter calling to end immigration detention at Fort Bliss, interviews with 45 people report physical and sexual abuse, medical neglect, and intimidation to self-deport. -
Press ReleaseDec 2025
Immigrants' Rights
National Security
Human Rights Groups Urge Ice To End Immigration Detention At Fort Bliss Military Base, Halt Abusive Third-country Deportations . Explore Press Release.Human Rights Groups Urge ICE to End Immigration Detention at Fort Bliss Military Base, Halt Abusive Third-Country Deportations
WASHINGTON — Human rights groups today sent a letter urging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to end immigration detention at Camp East Montana, a massive tent camp at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas. Advocates summarized in their letter accounts of horrific conditions, including beatings and sexual abuse by officers against detained immigrants, beatings and coercive threats to compel deportation to third countries, medical neglect, hunger and insufficient food, and denial of meaningful access to counsel, among other rights violations. The letter comes just weeks after Rep. Veronica Escobar warned that people detained at Ft. Bliss were given foul-tasting drinking water, rotten food, and inadequate healthcare. The letter follows months of interviews with more than 45 detained people at Ft. Bliss and is accompanied by 16 sworn declarations by immigrants detained at the facility. Numerous detained people told lawyers that officers have engaged in a widespread and unreasonable pattern and practice of excessive force, including the use of abusive sexual contact by officers when utilizing force. One detained teenager using the pseudonym “Samuel” told lawyers he was beaten by officers so severely he sustained injuries across his body, lost consciousness, and had to be taken to a hospital in an ambulance. The letter relays Samuel’s account that his right front tooth broke from the force of being slammed to the ground, and as Samuel attests, one officer “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them,” while another “forced his fingers deep into my ears.” Samuel went on to say that while he was feeling “dizzy” and was “fighting to remain conscious,” an officer laughed at Samuel for having a chipped tooth after being slammed to the ground and told Samuel he was “like a little girl.” Samuel said that weeks after the beating, damage to his left ear is so severe that he now has trouble hearing. In their letter, the groups also reiterate their calls to immediately halt deportations of people to third countries to which they have no genuine ties. Interviewees said that at Ft. Bliss, the prospect of such removals has taken on a particularly abusive character. People detained attested that officers at Ft. Bliss have beaten detained people and used the threat of violence, criminal charges, and imprisonment in attempts to coerce non-Mexican immigrants held at Ft. Bliss to cross the border into the Mexican desert. Isaac, a Cuban immigrant held at Ft. Bliss, attested in a sworn declaration that officers told him that he was going to be deported to Mexico. Isaac told lawyers that, “the guards hit my head” and “slammed it against the wall approximately ten times.” He also said that officers grabbed and crushed his testicles between their fingers, and that soon after, officers handcuffed Isaac and approximately 20 other people, placed them on a bus, and drove them to the border, where they were informed they could get off the bus and cross into Mexico. Isaac added that officers told them “If we don’t want to go to Mexico, then we would either be sent to a jail cell in El Salvador or Africa.” Isaac is also using a pseudonym to protect his identity. The letter – which was signed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Mexico, ACLU of Texas, Estrella del Paso, Human Rights Watch, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, and Texas Civil Rights Project – also follows widespread media coverage detailing abusive conditions. In September 2025, a Washington Post report noted that a leaked internal ICE inspection found the Ft. Bliss facility violated over 60 federal detention standards in the first 50 days of its opening. The Trump administration hastily opened the sprawling tent camp in August 2025, despite warnings from members of Congress and advocates that the facility would be a humanitarian disaster. The facility is located on the military base formerly used to intern people of Japanese descent during World War II and currently holds over 2,700 people, making it the country’s largest immigration detention center. The full letter to ICE is available here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/ice-letter-re-fort-bliss The declarations are available here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/fort-bliss-declarations-december-2025 -
Press ReleaseDec 2025
Immigrants' Rights
Supreme Court To Hear High-stakes Birthright Citizenship Challenge . Explore Press Release.Supreme Court to Hear High-Stakes Birthright Citizenship Challenge
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today agreed to hear an appeal in a case challenging President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order that seeks to deny U.S. citizenship to many babies born in the United States. The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Trump v. Barbara. Courts have repeatedly blocked the administration from implementing the executive order, finding it violates the Constitution, over a century of Supreme Court precedent, and a longstanding federal statute. The Barbara case is a nationwide class action, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund on behalf of babies who would be subject to the executive order. This summer, the federal court in the Barbara case granted a preliminary injunction that protects birthright citizenship for all children born on U.S. soil. Birthright citizenship is the legal principle, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, that every baby born in the United States is a U.S. citizen. The Trump administration’s order seeks to deny citizenship to children unless one of their parents is a U.S. citizen or has permanent immigration status, excluding children born to parents on temporary work, student, or other visas, or without immigration status at the time of birth. This assault on birthright citizenship flouts the Constitution’s dictates, longstanding Supreme Court precedent, a statute passed by Congress, and fundamental American values. “No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” said Cecillia Wang, ACLU national legal director. “For over 150 years, it has been the law and our national tradition that everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen from birth. The federal courts have unanimously held that President Trump’s executive order is contrary to the Constitution, a Supreme Court decision from 1898, and a law enacted by Congress. We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.” “The Trump administration’s attempts to unilaterally rewrite the 14th Amendment — an essential Reconstruction-era measure that granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., including formerly enslaved people — will not stand,” said Morenike Fajana, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund. “We look forward to going before the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutional promise of citizenship for all babies born in America.” “It’s deeply troubling that we must waste precious judicial resources relitigating what has been settled constitutional law for over a century,” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Law Caucus. “Every federal judge who has considered this executive order has found it unconstitutional. If implemented, this policy would force all parents — including U.S. citizens — to prove their immigration status just to get a birth certificate or Social Security number for their baby, inevitably leading to racial profiling based on names, appearance, or accent.” “The attack on the fundamental right of birthright citizenship is an attack on the 14th Amendment and our Constitution,” said Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund. “We are confident the court will affirm this basic right, which has stood for over a century. Millions of families across the country deserve and require that clarity and stability.” “Our Constitution and the more than a century of court decisions on this topic are overwhelmingly clear: no politician can decide who among those born in this country is worthy of citizenship. We will continue fighting this cruel executive order to ensure that every child born in the United States has their right to citizenship protected instead of being relegated to a permanent, multigenerational subclass of people born in the U.S. but who are denied full rights,” said SangYeob Kim, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the ACLU of New Hampshire. ‘The 14th Amendment established birthright citizenship as a bedrock principle on which Congress and the Supreme Court, together with generations of Americans, have worked to build a modern, democratic, and pluralistic society. By creating an unlawful regime where some American babies are treated as second-class citizens based on their parentage, the Trump administration is taking a sledgehammer to the foundations of that society. The ACLU will not let that happen. The court should use this opportunity to reaffirm its century-old precedents and confirm, once and for all, that birthright citizenship is here to stay,” said Carol Rose, executive director at the ACLU of Massachusetts. Additionally, these same legal groups brought another birthright citizenship lawsuit, which is on behalf of three organizations with members whose babies born on U.S. soil would be denied citizenship under the order: New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support, League of United Latin American Citizens, and Make the Road New York.