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Trump Moves to Hide Immigrant Detention Conditions as Prisoners Describe 'Torture' by Whitney Curry Wimbish
As President Trump presses ahead with his conversion of warehouses across the country into huge immigrant concentration camps, advocates and lawmakers are warning that there is virtually zero oversight of the conditions inside any Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prison.
The administration has gutted the agency’s inspector general and civil rights divisions, they said, and it has closed the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, a position created in 2019 to investigate deaths, medical care, and guard misconduct inside ICE prisons.
The last check on the prisons is surprise visits by lawmakers, during which they can speak to immigrants and ask what life is like inside, they said. But in a May 11 memo, ICE’s acting director at the time, Todd Lyons, said those conversations are disruptive and unfair to workers. Now ICE will only facilitate meetings with detainees during congressional visits if lawmakers request them by name, along with “valid proof of the alien’s consent to the meeting” at least two days in advance.
Lawmakers and advocates said they doubted the new acting director, former private prison company official David Venturella, would respect their authority any more than his predecessor did. Venturella worked for more than a decade at GEO Group, one of the two biggest for-profit private-sector companies that run ICE prisons, most recently as senior vice president of client relations. He’s also a major Trump donor via GEO Group’s PAC.
“Congress is now the only oversight mechanism, and they’re trying to make that as difficult as possible,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) said in an interview. He found out about the new policy when he and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) visited the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego unannounced on May 11, the same day the memo is dated. They were allowed in, but a staff member handed them the memo when they tried to speak with prisoners, which is a crucial part of surprise visits if they’re to get a clear read on a facility’s conditions and prisoners’ experiences.
The administration has gutted the agency’s inspector general and civil rights divisions, they said, and it has closed the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, a position created in 2019 to investigate deaths, medical care, and guard misconduct inside ICE prisons.
The last check on the prisons is surprise visits by lawmakers, during which they can speak to immigrants and ask what life is like inside, they said. But in a May 11 memo, ICE’s acting director at the time, Todd Lyons, said those conversations are disruptive and unfair to workers. Now ICE will only facilitate meetings with detainees during congressional visits if lawmakers request them by name, along with “valid proof of the alien’s consent to the meeting” at least two days in advance.
Lawmakers and advocates said they doubted the new acting director, former private prison company official David Venturella, would respect their authority any more than his predecessor did. Venturella worked for more than a decade at GEO Group, one of the two biggest for-profit private-sector companies that run ICE prisons, most recently as senior vice president of client relations. He’s also a major Trump donor via GEO Group’s PAC.
“Congress is now the only oversight mechanism, and they’re trying to make that as difficult as possible,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) said in an interview. He found out about the new policy when he and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) visited the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego unannounced on May 11, the same day the memo is dated. They were allowed in, but a staff member handed them the memo when they tried to speak with prisoners, which is a crucial part of surprise visits if they’re to get a clear read on a facility’s conditions and prisoners’ experiences.
https://prospect.org/2026/05/20/trump-moves-to-hide-immigrant-detention-conditions-as-prisoners-describe-torture/]
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