Allegations are starting to roll in from migrants who have been nabbed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that conditions are so brutal in the camps that one man said he was "dying, little by little."
In a post on X, ICE claimed that conditions were lavish, with "beds, warm showers, tablets, three meals a day, professional mental and physical health care."
Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick fact-checked it with several reports noting the "Professional mental and physical health care" that ICE indicates they're providing in the detention centers.
One headline noted a man who brought a jar of blood, saying he was dying.
In a report from the California publication Capital & Main, the man with the jar of blood explained, “I have cancer, and I’m really suffering. There is no medical treatment here. I’m bleeding every day.”
"This is the proof I have. This is the blood I’ve lost today," he said.
CoreCivic, the private prison company that runs the Otay Mesa Detention Center, claimed that the man was being given proper medical attention.
"Medical records from Kaiser Permanente show that [the man] went to a Los Angeles emergency room in April 2024, where doctors documented rectal bleeding and anemia, among other health concerns. The doctors tried to hospitalize him but, because no beds were available, they eventually sent him home, instructing him to follow up with a colonoscopy as soon as possible, according to the records," the report said.
It was shortly thereafter that he was taken into custody by ICE.
Medical records from the prison company confirm that the man told the staff as soon as he arrived that he had colon cancer.
The judge asked whether the man was being treated, and the ICE attorney claimed that they were "waiting" for the private prison company to "assess whether it could provide the requested care or whether he would need to be transferred to another detention facility," the report said.
The judge ultimately explained he had no power to do anything about it. They would have to go to federal district court.
