ICE slashed detention facility inspections by 36% even as detentions and in-custody deaths surged

Federal oversight of immigration detention facilities fell sharply in 2025 during the largest expansion of the system in decades, according to a joint investigation published by the Project On Government Oversight and American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop.

The reporters analyzed data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own facility inspections website and found a 36.25% decline in the number of detention facility inspection reports published by the agency’s Office of Detention Oversight in 2025 compared with the previous year. The office is one of ICE’s primary tools for tracking conditions inside the facilities where it holds immigrants.

According to the investigation, those inspections evaluate whether facilities meet detention standards that govern basic health and safety, including adequate health care, suicide prevention, food quality and habitable shelter. The agency is supposed to inspect facilities twice a year when they hold an average daily population of 10 or more people for longer than 72 hours, and detention centers that fail two consecutive inspections are required to lose federal funding. The reporters wrote that no facility on ICE’s website showed evidence of more than one inspection during 2025.

Detention and deaths rose as inspections fell

The reduction in oversight coincided with record growth in immigration detention. The investigation cited figures reported by The Guardian showing that as of mid-December 2025 there were 68,440 people held in ICE detention, a 78% increase from the number detained a year earlier. The expansion followed campaign pledges by President Donald Trump to overhaul immigration enforcement.

Deaths in custody also climbed. A Guardian tally cited in the report found that 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, nearly three times the number recorded in 2024 and, according to that count, the most since 2004. A separate review of trackers put the range at roughly 30 to 32 deaths for the year, with ICE’s own public accounting listing at least 30.

Andrew Free, a lawyer and researcher who founded the #DetentionKills project, told the reporters that the drop in inspections amounts to an “invitation” to increased lethality in detention. He predicted that deaths would continue to rise in 2026 without a revival of oversight tools, and he said the inspection process, despite its limits, remains “basically the only thing left” that produces official agency acknowledgment that standards are being violated.

The Department of Homeland Security has described conditions differently. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a September 2025 statement that “all detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members,” and that the safety and well-being of people in custody is a top priority. ICE did not respond to an interview request for the investigation.

A mandate from Congress

The twice-a-year inspection requirement dates to 2019, when Congress mandated the schedule for qualifying facilities and appropriated $6.9 million for the added cost, according to a DHS report to Congress cited in the investigation. The reporters noted that the Office of Detention Oversight published more inspection reports in the years after the mandate before the number fell in 2025, even though the congressional requirement had not changed.

Border czar Tom Homan told sheriffs in February 2025 that the administration wanted to reduce the number of federal inspections to encourage local agencies to make their jails available for detention, Reuters reported. A separate CBS News analysis found that facilities were being inspected every year or every other year rather than twice a year, and that more than a dozen facilities had gone over a year without an inspection.

ICE also expanded its physical network. The investigation cited the Vera Institute of Justice in reporting that ICE detained people in 59 new facilities in 2025 and reopened 77 that had previously closed. The administration also broadened use of local and county jails through the 287(g) program, which expanded to more than 1,000 agreements with law enforcement entities across 40 states.

Facilities cited for violations

Inspection reports that were published in 2025 documented failures at multiple facilities, according to the investigation, including staff not properly monitoring people at risk of suicide, medical staff not responding to care requests, and facilities without enough toilets. At the Krome North Service Processing Center in Florida, inspectors documented five violations related to medical care and 14 violations of detention standards overall, including overcrowding, with people reported sleeping on floors without bedding. The reporters wrote that Krome received the required two inspections in both 2023 and 2024 but only one in 2025.

The Everglades facility widely known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which opened in July 2025, had no inspection reports published during the year, the investigation found. Both Krome and the Everglades site were reviewed in a December report by Amnesty International that described conditions as “inhuman.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis responded that critics would allege mistreatment “no matter what.”

According to the report, other oversight functions were also scaled back. NPR reported that the administration gutted two DHS oversight offices in early 2025, laying off hundreds of employees, and the government shutdown in the fall furloughed Office of Detention Oversight staff even as other immigration enforcement offices continued operating. In an October letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) wrote that the office “is not peripheral; it is the department’s primary safeguard against abuse and neglect in immigration detention centers.”