On a humid September afternoon in Folkston, Georgia, a row of detainees shuffled silently across the yard of the Folkston ICE Processing Center. The scene, captured on September 9, 2025, has become emblematic of a growing crisis inside the United States’ immigration detention system—a crisis that has now drawn the urgent attention of Georgia’s two Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
In a letter shared exclusively with both NPR and BERITAJA, Senators Ossoff and Warnock demanded answers from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem regarding a disturbing rise in deaths within immigration detention centers. Since President Trump took office, 15 people have died in U.S. immigration custody, with a staggering 10 of those deaths occurring between January and June 2025 alone. According to the senators, this marks the highest rate of deaths in detention for the first six months of any year on record.
“Whatever our views on border enforcement, immigration enforcement, immigration policy, I think the overwhelming majority of the American people does not want detainees abused while they’re in U.S. custody,” Ossoff told NPR, echoing a sentiment that cuts across the political spectrum. The senators’ letter reflects not only their own concerns, but also the unease felt by many Americans about the treatment of people held in government facilities.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been moving quickly to expand detention capacity and ramp up arrest rates, spurred by billions of dollars in new Congressional funding. By the summer of 2025, more than 50,000 people were being held in ICE detention centers, even though the agency officially had only 46,000 beds available. To bridge the gap, ICE has expanded its use of military bases and forged new partnerships with state authorities in Indiana, Nebraska, and Louisiana. Yet this rapid expansion has come at a cost, drawing sharp criticism from immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers alike.
Across the country, reports have surfaced of overcrowded facilities, unsanitary conditions, and persistent problems with food and healthcare access. According to both NPR and BERITAJA, these issues appear to be the direct result of a policy focus on making more arrests, sometimes without adequate resources to care for the growing detainee population. The situation has become so dire that it prompted Senator Ossoff to release a report in July 2025 alleging human rights violations at immigration detention centers—including the mistreatment of children, U.S. citizens, and pregnant women. The Department of Homeland Security, for its part, broadly refuted these claims, but the controversy has not subsided.
Adding to the concern is a significant reduction in oversight. DHS recently implemented widespread job cuts in its divisions focused on civil rights, including the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. This office is responsible for monitoring ICE and Customs and Border Protection detention practices, and its diminished capacity raises questions about the government’s ability to ensure detainee safety and hold officials accountable.
Transparency, too, has come under scrutiny. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, testifying before Congress in May 2025, insisted, “We do conduct a thorough investigation of all of those,” referring to deaths in custody. He pledged that information on these deaths would be made publicly available online, in accordance with Congressional mandates. “ICE is dedicated to transparency,” Lyons said. But the reality has not matched the rhetoric, according to the senators and outside observers.
Ossoff and Warnock’s letter specifically highlighted a troubling pattern of delayed reporting. ICE’s own guidelines require the agency to post an interim notice of any detainee death to its website within 48 hours, with the expectation that “every effort should be made to post the interim notice” even sooner. Yet in recent cases, these standards have not been met. When a Mexican national died in ICE custody on August 31, 2025, the public statement was not issued until two days later. Another detainee’s death on September 8 was not publicly disclosed until seven days had passed. As of September 23, neither death appeared on the official ICE detainee death tracker.
“ICE is failing to meet its own standards for reporting detainee deaths, thereby hindering Congressional oversight efforts and leaving families in the dark as to their loved ones’ fates,” the senators wrote. The delays not only impede oversight but also leave families and the public without critical information about what is happening inside these facilities.
The issue is not just one of bureaucratic lag. The stakes are heartbreakingly high. Just days before the senators’ letter, another man died while detained by ICE in Nassau County, according to local reports. These deaths, layered atop reports of inadequate care and oversight, have fanned the flames of national debate about the role and responsibility of immigration enforcement in the United States.
The expansion of detention space has been especially contentious. While proponents argue that increased capacity is necessary to enforce immigration laws and respond to surges in border crossings, critics warn that the rush to house more detainees has led to dangerous shortcuts. Overcrowding, insufficient medical staff, and a lack of basic necessities have all been cited as contributing factors to the recent spate of deaths.
Meanwhile, the reduction in oversight staff has left many questioning whether there are enough safeguards in place to protect detainees’ rights and well-being. The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, once a key player in monitoring detention conditions, now struggles to fulfill its mandate with far fewer resources. For families of those held in detention, this means even less recourse when something goes wrong.
ICE’s public commitment to transparency has also been called into question. Congressional mandates require that information about deaths in custody be posted online promptly, but as recent cases show, the agency has struggled to keep pace. The lack of timely updates not only frustrates lawmakers but also erodes public trust in the system.
For many, the debate over immigration detention is not just about policy—it’s about people. As Senator Ossoff put it, the vast majority of Americans “does not want detainees abused while they’re in U.S. custody.” The deaths of more than a dozen people since 2021 have forced a reckoning with the real-world consequences of immigration enforcement, challenging the nation to balance security with humanity.
As the Biden administration and Congress grapple with these issues, the questions raised by Georgia’s senators remain urgent and unresolved. For the families of those who have died—and for the thousands still in detention—the search for answers continues.