ICE has not paid for detainee medical care for 7 months

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Pablo Manríquez @PabloReports1h
ICE has not paid for detainee medical care for 7 months. The termination of payments to providers has coincided with a massive spike in detainee deaths and medical crises.

On October 3, 2025, the Trump administration abruptly stopped paying third-parties for medical care provided to detainees in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Third-party providers are used to provide “medically necessary” care including “dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, [and] chemotherapy,” according to ICE.

A document posted to an official government contracting website by ICE on November 12, described the situation as an “absolute emergency” that needed to be resolved “immediately” to “prevent any further medical complications or loss of life.”

According to the ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC), payments to third parties were supposed to resume on April 30, 2026. ICE has contracted with a private firm, Acentra Health, to process reimbursements.

From 2018 to 2024, the average number of people who died in ICE custody annually was 8.9. That includes a spike in 2020 related to the onset of the COVID pandemic. In 2025, 33 people died in ICE custody, including 12 after the medical reimbursements stopped.

The trend is accelerating. In the first four months of 2026, 18 people have died in ICE custody. Since ICE stopped medical reimbursements on October 3, 2025, people have been dying in ICE custody at a rate of 51.7 people annually. This is more than five times the death rate before the policy was implemented.

https://popular.info/p/ice-has-not-paid-for-detainee-medical

...also:



https://www.huffpost.com/entry/immigration-detention-ombudsman-closure_n_69f8facee4b0115dd7bf98e5