HV Detention Watch #7 – The Ulster Immigrant Defense Network

Media monitoring compiled by Susan Manuel, 18-25 August 2026

Detention abuses unaddressed

National Public Radio (NPR) reported on August 20 that “The system meant to protect ICE detainees has collapsed….leaving thousands of people trapped in systems with nearly nonexistent oversight.” The grievance mechanism for detainees “barely operates and even at times backfires for those using it.” This was to be one of the only safeguards remaining after the Trump administration “effectively dismantled other oversight offices.” NPR cited a Biden era study by the ACLU of Northern California which found that in six privately run facilities in the state, only 8% of 485 grievance complaints were found in favor of the detained person.

And “even grievances that are ultimately founded, there’s often no real remedy…. There’s nothing with teeth and no enforcement mechanism for making sure the grievance is actually addressed in a meaningful way,” said Mariel Villareal, an attorney with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. She said many people filing grievances know it’s a “sham” but do so to document “what’s happening to them.” NPR‘s story details serious cases of medical neglect which may have led to scores of deaths. Members of Congress retain the legal authority to visit ICE detention facilities at any time, but ICE has been enforcing more restrictive policies designed to block unannounced visits.

Trans detainees denied medical care. Several media reported that trans immigrants are denied basic medical care in detention. The New York Times followed the case of a 25-year-old transgender woman who has spent nearly a year in a detention center for men where she says she has been “assaulted, threatened and deprived of medical care.” She’s also kept in solitary confinement, as are other transgender women in men’s facilities. An Obama era policy that provided basic rights for transgender people in immigration detention was deleted from the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) website in February 2025.

“We are NOT wasting U.S. taxpayer dollars to provide hormone therapy to illegal aliens seeking to change their sex,” DHS said in an email to the NYT. According to the NYT several dozen of the more than 65,000 people in detention are transgender. ICE last reported numbers in January 2025 when they had 47 transgender people in custody. “Many are fleeing harassment in other countries and had just begun to be given some protections within the U.S. detention system in recent years.” Bridget Crawford, legal director of Immigration Equality, added “The administration is creating a humanitarian disaster” by changing policies meant to protect transgender people.”

Detained deaf people unable to communicate. Deaf people in detention are being denied access to language assistance (Mother Jones). More than 100 who report sign language as their primary tongue have received deportation or removal orders since January 2026, likely an undercount of those with hearing disabilities. Historically, deaf detainees had been able to seek help through the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, but in March 2025 the Trump administration laid off 150 of its staff, leaving the office with two full-time employees. Discrimination against disabled people in ICE detention is widespread, according to an attorney with Disability Law United. “ICE provides all detainees who have a documented hearing disability with an effective method of communication, as is reasonably needed,” a DHS spokesperson said.

Other abuses being fought. Colorado media reported that the state sued the GEO Group to force it to comply with an investigation into tuberculosis at the Aurora immigration detention center. Mexican media have reported that Mexico has filed 20 complaints with US authorities over the deaths of 17 Mexicans in ICE custody. The Gothamist reported that about a dozen detainees at Delaney Hall are seeking U visas, available to immigrants who have been victims of crime. It’s a new legal strategy to possibly protect them from deportation.

Yet, ICE says all is well. The Project on Government Oversight has found that despite the reported problems in detention centers, the number of ICE facilities with the agency’s highest inspection grade of “superior” has tripled since 2024, reports Cal Matters. The high ratings coincides with weakened detention standards and fewer inspections. The ratings come from ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight, which also grades for violations of ICE standards which can ultimately lead to a facility losing its license. “Despite this provision—or perhaps because of it—detention facilities rarely received failing grades from inspectors between fiscal years 2022 and 2026,” the Project on Government Oversight reported.

How we’re treating kids

Judge appoints oversight for detained children. Media reported over the week that U.S. District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee appointed an independent monitor and a special master (an expert assigned to assist the judge) to track the government’s compliance with a 1997 legal agreement that sets basic standards of care for immigrant children in US custody. Judge Gee oversees the Flores settlement which states that migrants 17 and younger must be expeditiously released from custody and must receive adequate meals, water, clothing, education, and medical assistance. The judge found “stark” and “conflicting “ differences between the government’s claims of compliance and reports from detainees, including much delayed medical care and freezing temperatures.

The Trump administration has tried to terminate Flores, but Judge Gee has rejected the attempts three times. The government has appealed, and the case is now before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The two appointees will evaluate conditions at several facilities and track how long children are being held. At the “family” detention center in Dilley, TX, for example, plaintiffs’ lawyers say about 1560 minors had been detained for longer than 20 days. Citing Reason magazine, Austin Kocher reported that the Office of Refugee Resettlement told vendors this month that it wants “emergency influx facilities,” anywhere in the country, with between 100 and 3,000 beds, for detained migrant children. Awards are to be made by December 31 with facilities operating within 90 days of the contract. Reported design details include rooms holding eight children sharing one toilet, shower and sink.

Kids without counsel. Federal funding for legal representation for more than 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children expired on 31 July. Attorney Meena Shah returned to immigration court last week to find children speaking only Q’eqchi without interpretation and some appearing alone, without representation, but ordered to find a lawyer within a week. “I felt burning shame for our country deciding this is an acceptable way to treat vulnerable children,” she wrote in the New York Daily News. However, New York is stepping up as Washington retreats, she said, citing Hochul’s pledge of $7.25 million in new funding for legal services for some 1,400 children, including 250 currently detained. And NYC Mayor Mamdani just announced $16.9 million in immigration legal services for unaccompanied children.

More legal developments

Third country removals. Immigration expert Austin Kocher, citing Human Rights First and Refugees International, reported on his Substack that 23,000 migrants have been sent to countries not their own since January 2025. Nearly 20,000 went to Mexico, with some 2,700 sent to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, 330 to countries in Africa, and 200 elsewhere. More than 35 bilateral agreements have been signed since January 2025, and two organizations traced $44 million in U.S. funding attached to them. Reuters and the The Guardian reported that 20 people living in the U.S., mostly Venezuelans and Cubans, were deported this week to Liberia, the West African country which has agreed to receive 1,200 migrants.

Asylum just got harder. Media reported on a federal rule issued on July 28 that allows asylum officers to send people to immigration court for deportation based only on written applications, bypassing the usual step of interviewing asylum applicants about why they fled to the U.S. This change could affect some 444,724 pending applications. Four organizations have sued in federal district court in Washington to vacate the rule.

“By eliminating the right to an asylum interview, this rule needlessly forces potentially hundreds of thousands of people into the overburdened, broken immigration court system, subjecting survivors of trauma, including children, to re-traumatizing proceedings, instead of allowing them to share their experience with a trained asylum officer in a less adversarial setting,” said Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, deputy director of the Florence Project. The rule will affect mainly affirmative asylum applications, those made by recent arrivals who are not detained. Defensive applications are usually filed by people already in the U.S. and can include people detained by ICE.

Trump officials say the change would help reduce case backlogs, but the litigants disagree. Many applicants have been waiting years for the initial interview: “Sending them directly to deportation proceedings will increase the case backlog in the already overburdened immigration court system where the Trump administration has made clear judges should deny even the strongest asylum applications before the applicants can submit evidence,” wrote the National Immigrant Justice Center.

NY border help to CPB. Despite New York’s new law banning 287(g) agreements between local law enforcement and federal authorities in immigration arrests, NY Focus reports that immigration arrests are occasionally carried out under Operation Stonegarden, a federal program that pays local law enforcement to work with US Border Patrol. “In some counties, the program has turned local cops into occasional immigration agents.”

Since 2009, DHS has given some $30 million to New York’s border counties for local deputies and police to conduct traffic stops and patrol marinas and trails and to buy equipment such as surveillance technology. Several sheriffs told Focus that Stonegarden patrols are not conducting immigration enforcement and are focused on drug and human trafficking interdiction. But at least three counties have used the funds to assist in immigration arrests, Focus found. Governor Hochul has boosted Stonegarden—awarded $2.7 million this year—for its efforts to “support counterterrorism and emergency preparedness efforts,” not mentioning immigration.

Law banning cooperation challenged. The new law barring cooperation was to start on 25 August, affecting 13 NY jurisdictions, 11 of which have committed to end their 287 (g) agreements. But sheriffs in two counties, Rensselaer and Nassau, say they will file a preemptive lawsuit. (WSHU Public Radio). “Gov. Hochul and other Democratic officials say the law will help protect immigrants from aggressive enforcement while they pursue asylum claims. But Republicans say the new law will make it easier for criminals to slip through the cracks. The debate is to take center stage this week in the governor’s race,” reports WSHU. New York may be an outlier as such agreements are proliferating: ICE says 2,365 agreements spanning 39 states have been signed. “Whether a broken taillight turns into a deportation case can now depend entirely on which side of a county line a driver gets pulled over on,” reports the Latintimes.com.

New ICE tactics grab collaterals. A raid on a New Jersey Mexican market in June illustrated post-Noem ICE tactics: 18 customers and workers were arrested in one of the region’s largest sweeps of the summer. DHS said it was following a tip that a criminal was inside, reported The New York Times. “The new ICE activity, more discreet and dexterous than the highly visible raids in large cities last year, has surprised towns, suburbs and cities across the U.S.…. Plainclothes agents in masks have resurfaced in towns and neighborhoods with large Hispanic populations, arresting immigrants at bus stops, construction sites and gas stations…. The overall surge in arrests has appeared to operate largely out of public view, insulated by more targeted operation and limited media attention….”