Isolation, delays, deterioration: Court records raise health concerns at Otay Mesa Detention Center

It was “the worst 24 hours of his life.” 

That’s what the daughter of a 77-year-old Iranian man with a rare, life-threatening liver disease told a judge. 

Immigration officials had transferred her dad to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego to get “better medical care” but detention staff placed him in “solitary confinement,” the daughter wrote in a sworn court declaration challenging his detention. She said he told her he banged on a locked door and screamed for help while having trouble breathing, but no one responded.

Court records show he was moved from that cell but detained for weeks even as doctors wrote letters recommending his release and after the lead physicians at Otay Mesa and another detention center agreed he should be released.

The man is one of dozens of detained immigrants who described deteriorating health or inadequate medical care at Otay Mesa in court records reviewed in an inewsource investigation. He and three others said they were put in restricted, isolated cells to receive medical treatment.

Detainees held for weeks or months — in one case more than a year — at Otay Mesa detailed worsening conditions in habeas corpus petitions, a federal court procedure being used in record numbers in recent months to challenge one’s detention amid a crackdown on immigration.

As President Donald Trump tries to deport a record number of people from the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security has sometimes skirted norms, procedure and the law to increase arrests — and federal judges have sometimes ordered detainees released.

inewsource reviewed more than 500 petitions filed between January and March by detainees at Otay Mesa and an immigration detention center in Imperial County for this story. 

Nearly 70 mentioned health concerns or medical care at Otay Mesa specifically. The petitions reveal a picture of a facility that is struggling to care for patients — from those with basic ailments to serious illness. 

Medical experts told inewsource that manageable conditions can be life-threatening inside detention centers. 

Katherine McKenzie, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine and director of the Yale Center for Asylum Medicine, said detention centers are generally not well equipped to handle complex medical cases.

 “Detention facilities should not house people who are chronically ill or acutely ill,” she said.

inewsource sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CoreCivic, the private prison company that manages Otay Mesa, detailed letters describing detainees’ allegations about health conditions and seeking comment. 

Both declined multiple interview requests, but they provided statements in response. 

The statement from ICE said detainees receive medical, dental and mental health services as well as access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care that meets national detention standards. ICE called it “the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives.”

In its own emailed statement, CoreCivic spokesperson Brian Todd said the contractor follows federal detention guidelines and is closely monitored by the government for compliance. 

“The safety, health and well-being of the individuals entrusted to our care is our top priority,” he said. 

CoreCivic denies that solitary confinement exists in its facilities “as a term or in practice.”

Todd said that staff place immigrants in “medical housing units” for more effective observation and treatment of patients who require it.  

“This is standard practice in healthcare settings and is distinct from disciplinary or administrative restrictive housing,” Todd said.

But immigration advocates have long held concerns over conditions inside ICE detention centers like Otay Mesa. Those concerns have become heightened as the number of deaths inside immigration detention centers reach a record high — 50 in Trump’s second term. 

The number of detained immigrants swelled to new heights nationwide this year. More than 1,170 people were detained at Otay Mesa as of April. Most of them have no criminal record. 

Meanwhile, attempts at independent oversight of the facility from local and federal officials have at times been limited or denied by the Department of Homeland Security.

San Diego County supervisors recently prevailed in a lawsuit seeking to ease federal facility restrictions limiting their oversight, and county health inspectors spent almost eight hours Friday evaluating conditions at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.

A report about their visit is expected to be released in coming weeks, but for months the picture inside has been incomplete.

The cases inewsource uncovered provide a rare window into detention: To the immigrants who say their health is suffering, as well as people on the outside — their partners, their kids and community members — pushing for their release. 

Here are their stories. 

Disruptions in care

The petitions noting health concerns varied in their level of detail and documentation.

Some had just a few sentences. Others included dozens of pages of medical documents, letters from doctors and declarations from family members or the detained immigrants themselves.

Many immigrants cited pre-existing conditions that worsened while they were detained or ongoing medical issues for which critical treatment was interrupted by their detention. 

They include: 

• A 47-year-old man from Somalia, married to a U.S. citizen, who said he missed a scheduled hip surgery because of his detention.
• A 33-year-old Iranian man with “serious” neurological issues who said his treatment has been “minimally managed” by the physician at Otay Mesa and that he was handcuffed and shackled “for extended periods of time” in “numerous appointments.”
• A man from Azerbaijan with “acute gastrointestinal distress” who said he was hospitalized for nine days, had nausea, pain and severe intolerance to the food at Otay Mesa and lost about 20 pounds while detained. 
• A woman from Mexico who uses a cane to walk and who said Otay Mesa staff mixed up her prescription medication with another detainee’s laxative, causing her to rush to the bathroom and fall, and further injure her knee, back and hips.
• A 34-year-old woman from Pakistan with asthma and anxiety who said she had panic attacks that knocked her unconscious, numerous head injuries while detained and was hospitalized for three days while at Otay Mesa; in a declaration to the court, she wrote, “I feel that if this continues while staying here, maybe one day I will die, because I stop breathing.” 

More than a dozen immigrants mentioned having chronic conditions, such as diabetes, Crohn’s disease and Hepatitis C.

Chronic conditions require regular treatment and follow-up that immigration detention centers are generally not equipped to provide, according to Altaf Saadi, an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School who studies the impacts of immigration detention on health. 

She said they operate “mostly around acute care needs” because generally the private prison companies that run those facilities are incentivized to cut costs, which can lead to understaffing, changes to medications and “serious consequences for patients with chronic conditions.”

CoreCivic’s Todd said immigrants are screened by a nurse upon arrival and have daily access to sign up for medical care, including mental health care. He said CoreCivic’s medical team of physicians, nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, dentists and more “contractually meet the highest standards of care.”

The spokesperson pointed to a recent accreditation from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. But other recent independent reports have found issues at Otay Mesa and in immigration detention centers more generally.

The California Department of Justice released a report last month on ICE facilities it inspected in the state, including Otay Mesa, finding that the facilities were “failing to meet ICE’s own detention standards, protect basic rights, safety, and wellbeing of detainees.”

And a 2025 study Saadi co-authored found that more time in detention was associated with worse health outcomes for immigrants at ICE detention centers. Seventy-five percent of the study’s respondents came from California.

Saadi said that an upcoming study on the same respondents found that those who experienced disruptions in care for chronic conditions had higher psychological distress years later. 

“This suggests that disrupted care in detention is not a temporary hardship — it can leave lasting health consequences long after detention ends,” she said.

One research study surveying detained immigrants in California found about 40% reported having a chronic condition and in another one-third reported disruptions in care while detained — the types of cases inewsource uncovered in its review of habeas corpus petitions.

In one from December, a 32-year-old Turkish man received blood tests indicating he needed prompt medical treatment, according to his legal petition. Before he could get follow-up care, he was detained and transferred to ICE custody while working as a driver.

The man has rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes intense pain in his neck and ankles, his sister wrote in a declaration. His brother-in-law told the court he tried to deliver medication for him to Otay Mesa but was turned away. The man’s cousin, uncle and another family friend also wrote letters, pledging to support the man if released.

“He is always helpful to those in need and is loved by the local community,” his sister wrote.

A judge granted the man’s petition, and ordered him a bond hearing within seven days, considering the legal issues and the man’s “uncontested and documented medical conditions.” 

ICE officials have also arrested people the government had supervised through annual check-ins for years or even decades despite little having changed in their immigration status or case. 

In one example, a 39-year woman from Ecuador was detained by ICE in November – almost a decade after she came to the U.S. with her then 1-month-old son to ask for asylum. Her detention forced her to miss a scheduled surgery to remove a uterine myoma.

She had been attending ICE check-ins every six months since 2020, but at her November check-in, she was detained again. The myoma in her uterus caused her to bleed and affected her blood pressure. She asked “again and again” to see medical staff for an infection before she got an appointment, she said in a declaration.

She said her detention also affected her now 9-year-old son, who has severe autism and ADHD or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and doesn’t speak or play with other kids. 

“He says that he doesn’t have any more fingers to count the days that I’ll be gone,” the woman wrote in a declaration. “The teachers can’t make him focus. He just cries.”

Discretion to detain

In general, ICE officers have broad discretion over who to detain and can consider one’s medical condition, alongside other factors, in making that decision. 

Despite its appearance — the chainlink fencing and razor wire, armed guards constantly watching and restricted access to the outside world — immigration detention is not supposed to be punitive. 

Some immigrants are subject to mandatory detention by law. For others, detention is meant to ensure immigrants show up to their court hearings or deportation flights or to protect the public if they pose a threat.

ICE can also use alternatives to detention, such as ankle monitors, to supervise immigrants they decide should not be detained. 

Yet ICE officials detained the 77-year-old Iranian man for six weeks even though they had previously decided not to detain him “due to medical reasons because they could not treat him while in detention,” according to his petition.

He had lived in the U.S. under supervised release, attending annual check-ins for more than two decades.

In November, officials fitted him with an ankle monitor. They later removed it because it interfered with the man’s monthly MRI scans, his petition said. 

He had multiple health conditions beyond his liver disease, including sleep apnea that required nightly CPAP therapy, severe diabetes and hearing loss. 

Inside detention, his daughter’s declaration said, he lost 10 pounds and regularly had high blood sugar readings. His daughter said a CPAP machine was sent to Otay Mesa for him, but the detention staff said they lost essential parts of it.

Two doctors and a nurse practitioner wrote letters urging for the man’s release. 

One doctor wrote that without the specialty care the man’s liver condition required, his condition could worsen without staff noticing, or he could face “delayed diagnosis of life-threatening complications, and irreversible harm.”

The government did not respond in court documents to the man’s claims of poor medical care. His attorney said in court documents that the government “has done nothing but ignore” the man’s “plea for medical help since he was first detained.” 

A federal judge ordered the man released from detention in January after finding that ICE officers had violated his due process rights. The legal grounds for his release were unrelated to his medical condition.

The May report from the California Department of Justice on conditions inside immigration detentions in the state, including Otay Mesa, suggests the Iranian man’s case is not unique.

In its report, the Justice Department found that immigrants “requiring higher levels of medical care or accommodations that Otay Mesa could not provide remained in the facility’s medical housing unit for months.”

Some detainees also told judges that the detention affected their mental health and described more general conditions: anxiety, depression, trouble sleeping at night and food that lacked proper nutrition.

One 43-year-old woman from China wrote in a declaration that she was “suffering” inside and pleaded with the judge for help. 

“I came to this country to seek refuge because of what happened to me in my country,” she said.  

“I never expected to have those inhuman treatments like this.”