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EXCLUSIVE: How the Trump administration sparked a health crisis for ICE detainees
An abrupt decision on October 3 left thousands of ICE detainees without access to vital medical care — a crisis that is ongoing.
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For more than two decades, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) played a limited but essential role in ensuring that people in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received necessary medical care. When an ICE detainee needed medication or medical treatment outside ICE facilities, the VA Financial Services Center processed those claims for reimbursement. ICE paid the VA to provide this service, so that no resources were diverted from veterans.
But then, according to previously unreported ICE documents, the VA “abruptly and instantly terminated” its agreement with ICE on October 3. According to the partially redacted documents, which were quietly posted to a government contracting website on November 12, the termination left ICE with “no mechanism to provide prescribed medication” and unable to “pay for medically necessary off-site care.” Among the services ICE said it could not provide were “dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, [and] chemotherapy.”
The situation was described by ICE as an “absolute emergency” that needed to be resolved “immediately” to “prevent any further medical complications or loss of life.”
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The documents detailed the justifications for why ICE was seeking no-bid contracts to replace the services previously provided by the VA. According to government contracting records, ICE signed two no-bid contracts on October 25. However, the ICE Health Service Corps website indicates that the new systems are not yet functioning and cannot yet process claims. Providers are instructed to “hold all claim submissions while we work to bring the new system online.”
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In the interim, it is unclear how or if ICE detainees are receiving medication or obtaining outside medical care. According to a federal class action lawsuit filed on behalf of detainees in California, numerous ICE detainees have not been receiving medically necessary care since October 3.
The lawsuit, filed on November 12, involves the treatment of detainees at the California City Detention Facility in the Mojave Desert. The lawsuit alleges that since Fernando Gomez Ruiz, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, arrived at the facility in mid-October, “he has been denied regular doses of insulin, leading to elevated blood sugar levels and a large, oozing ulcer on the bottom of his foot.” According to the complaint, Gomez Ruiz “has also been denied proper wound care for his ulcer, which he is forced to cover with soiled bandages and bloody shoes.”
Another plaintiff in the lawsuit, Fernando Viera Reyes, has prostate cancer but claims he “has not seen a urologist or received the testing urgently needed to diagnose and treat his condition.” Viera Reyes, acc