Here's how the system to report problems in ICE detention has failed immigrants
One of the last remaining checks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and private-prison contractors running immigration detention centers has all but collapsed, leaving thousands of people trapped in a system with nearly non-existent oversight.
The grievance system in immigration detention is designed to offer a safe channel to report violations of detention standards and seek redress, without fear of retaliation.
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system → report → retaliation
It's often the only recourse for people to submit complaints about detention issues, including mistreatment, unsanitary conditions, medical neglect, and sexual assault.
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people → submit → mistreatment
But an NPR review has found the system — which in the best of times was a complex patchwork — barely operates and even at times backfires for those using it.
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which → find → it
It is one of the few remaining safeguards for immigrants in federal custody after the Trump administration effectively dismantled other oversight offices.
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administration → remain → offices
Detainees and their families tell NPR that in the very worst cases the absence of transparency and accountability, and the subsequent failure to adhere to mandated grievance guidelines is one of the leading factors for the record number of deaths in detention — at least 53 since the start of President Trump's second term.
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absence → tell → term
Critics say it is the reason why more detainees are risking their lives to protest inhumane conditions and legal rights violations, in the form of widespread hunger strikes.
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detainees → say → strikes
The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer specific questions about how it handles detainees' grievance claims, how DHS or private contractor employees are trained, what steps it takes to ensure private contractors — the largest being CoreCivic and The GEO Group — adhere to guidelines, or whether all detention facilities have a mandatory grievance committee.
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facilities → decline → committee
Instead, the office referred NPR to the 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards, which outlines how the system is intended to work.
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system → refer → Standards
D.E.'s story
That system didn't work for D.E., who has had a brain tumor growing in his head for the last 12 years.
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tumor → work → years
He was supposed to start chemotherapy the week he was picked up by ICE just a couple blocks from his home.
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he → suppose → home
It was around 2 a.m. and D.E., one of more than a thousand detainees in the California City Detention Center, was lying on the lower bunk of his small cell.
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D.E. → lie → cell
The CoreCivic guard who normally brought his nightly dose of Keppra, the medication he's relied on twice a day for years to keep seizures at bay, was more than five hours late, and it wasn't the first time.
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it → bring → bay
He'd had the first seizure just a couple of weeks earlier and the telltale signs of an oncoming convulsion were in full effect: A relentless throbbing in his brain behind the three inch scar above his left ear.
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signs → have → ear
"I could feel it coming and I didn't want to hurt myself so I jammed my arm between the metal bed frame and the wall to lock myself in place," D.E., a Mexican national who requested NPR only use his initials because he fears government retaliation, said in Spanish.
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he → feel → Spanish
Trapping his arm was the best precaution he could come up with to keep himself from accidentally falling face first into the shared toilet that was just inches from his bed, he said.
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he → trap → bed
"It's what I was most afraid of because I could have drowned."
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I → drown → what
Recalling that night, D.E. described the episode as a sustained haze of torture.
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D.E. → recall → torture
The next morning, he tried to document what he could remember in a medical grievance that has been reviewed by NPR.
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that → try → NPR
In practice, the grievance system should act as an internal accountability mechanism for both federally-run and contracted detention facilities; the guidelines establish mandatory review and adjudication timeframes.
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guidelines → act → timeframes
I am writing this letter to the Medical Services Department regarding a complaint about my medical condition," he wrote on March 6.
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he → write → March
"It is a very aggressive issue involving a brain tumor that causes headaches and has triggered epileptic episodes lasting up to four hours.
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that → involve → hours
I am requesting that you provide me with a doctor specializing in radiation and chemotherapy, as my treatment was interrupted when I was detained by ICE on January 19.
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I → request → January
A breakdown of oversight
Lawmakers, immigration attorneys, advocates, and detainees report that experiences like D.E.'s are ubiquitous across the nation's detention centers, reflecting a broken grievance process.
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experiences → report → process
Trying to enforce the rules of the grievance system has always been challenging, Chris Brundage, the former deputy of the now closed Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman told NPR.
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Brundage → try → NPR
That's partly because it's not one single set of standards that all operators must follow, Brundage said.
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Brundage → follow → that
"It's a patchwork system that has never worked as intended," he said, explaining that there are at least three different sets of detention standards that operators are working under, depending on when they signed their contracts.
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they → work → contracts
(Some operators are following guidelines established in 2011.
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operators → follow → 2011
Others, an updated version from 2016, and those with new contracts are following 2019 standards.)
Over the last two years those problems have been significantly exacerbated by the evisceration of nearly all immigration detention oversight offices by the second Trump administration, he said.
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he → update → administration
The Office of Detention Oversight, created by Congress in order to conduct internal inspections and the Immigration Detention Ombudsman's office tasked with investigating detainee deaths and other issues have had their budgets gutted and suffered massive layoffs.
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budgets → create → layoffs
Both agencies sit within DHS.
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agencies → sit → DHS
In the case of the Ombudsman's office, one of the only places that detainees could turn to to challenge a grievance denial outside of the immediate detention facility, it was fully shuttered in May.
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it → turn → May
Another office whose budget has been slashed is the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Brundage noted.
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Brundage → slash → Rights
In 2025 the administration slashed the CRCL staff from roughly 150 employees down to just a handful, effectively halting operations.
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administration → slash → operations
The Government Accountability Project reported more than 500 active civil rights and detention-abuse complaints — including allegations of medical neglect, sexual abuse, and dangerous conditions in immigration detention — were frozen or left uninvestigated.
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complaints → report → detention
At the time, the Trump administration said cutting hundreds of staff positions at the congressionally mandated offices was necessary to save money and because DHS claimed they were "internal adversaries that slow down operations."
"I think what happened when these offices were effectively gutted and shut down, you lost that … legitimacy.
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you → say → legitimacy
And legitimacy means that they're following the laws, regulations.
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they → mean → laws
But what happens if you don't have transparency into the process and you don't have accountability?
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you → happen → accountability
Without those two things, that legitimacy erodes, " Brundage said.
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Brundage → erode → things
Even before the closures it has been virtually impossible for lawmakers or inspectors to know how many grievances are filed at any given detention center each year, because neither ICE nor any of the private prison companies contracted by DHS are required to disclose that data to any review body.
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ICE → know → body
Also, even internally detention facility operators are not required to track data on how many grievance complaints are deemed to be founded, how the issue was resolved, or if it was challenged, whether the initial rejection was overturned.
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rejection → require → data
…and 84 more, not listed.
