Ossoff Report Details ICE Abuse of Pregnant Women and Children
A Senate investigation documents 510 human rights violations, including miscarriages, child neglect, and sexual assaults in ICE custody.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., has released a sweeping investigation documenting hundreds of human rights abuses in U.S. immigration detention, including dozens of cases involving pregnant women and children.
Since January, Ossoff’s office has identified 510 credible reports of abuse across facilities run by the Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Prisons, Health and Human Services, county jails, federal prisons, and even overseas U.S. military bases in Cuba and Djibouti. Among them were 41 cases of physical and sexual abuse, 14 involving pregnant women, and 18 involving children.
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The report describes detainees beaten by guards, held in solitary confinement after reporting assaults, or forced into painful “stress positions” as punishment. At a federal detention center in Miami, detainees reported being confined for hours without food or water, then attacked with flash-bang grenades and rubber bullets when they protested.
Pregnant women were frequently denied medical care, the report found. One detainee miscarried alone in a hospital room after staff delayed treatment for days, while others were told to “just drink water” instead of receiving exams. Attorneys reported clients waiting weeks for appointments that were later canceled.
Children as young as two — including U.S. citizens — were also mistreated, according to the investigation. A girl recovering from brain surgery was detained without access to follow-up care, while another child undergoing cancer treatment was deported without seeing a doctor. In one case, a U.S. citizen child vomited blood in custody; a guard allegedly responded, “Just give the girl a cracker”.
Most reports of abuse originated in Texas, Georgia, and California, with facilities run by DHS and private contractors accounting for the majority of complaints. The investigation also cited records of sexual assaults at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California and the South Texas ICE Processing Center.
Ossoff has pressed DHS, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon for answers, demanding transparency on detention conditions, including the use of federal prisons and military sites such as Guantánamo Bay to hold migrants. He warned that administration efforts to lower ICE detention standards and restart family detention “risk systemic violations of basic human rights.”
“This is an active and ongoing investigation,” the report states, adding that the 510 credible reports represent only a fraction of potential abuses still unreported or undocumented.
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