The 2024 Homeland Security appropriations bill increased funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations to handle an anticipated daily detainee population of 41,500, up from an average of 34,000 in recent years.
Yet recent studies have exposed cracks that call into question the agency’s ability to medically care for the detainees it is entrusted with, including inhumane conditions, high suicide rates, structural problems such as the use of prisons to hold detainees, delayed or interrupted medical care and overcrowded conditions. Research also shows that the pandemic years further exacerbated these inequalities.
