‘They're Not Breathing’: Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls

During visits successful caller months, Emelie says her husband, who was detained astatine Stewart until he was deported past month, described terrible overcrowding. "He told maine erstwhile Trump took over, they were rolling retired mats successful nan halls. People were sleeping retired there.”

Emelie is simply a pseudonym granted for privacy. She says nan conditions took a visible toll connected her husband, who mislaid weight, grew progressively anxious, and struggled to slumber amid nan sound and tension. He described having to hold agelong stretches betwixt meals. When her hubby came down pinch nan flu and spiked a precocious fever, she says, he revenge aggregate sick telephone requests, but ne'er received care. "He had Covid-19 once,” she says. “Same thing. People would beryllium sick and conscionable near to get worse.”

“You don’t guidelines a chance astatine Stewart,” Emelie says, “It’s a decease condemnation for you and your family.”

When asked astir overcrowding astatine Stewart, Todd told WIRED, “Everyone successful our attraction is offered a bed.” But 3 attorneys who regularly sojourn nan installation said their clients person consistently described sleeping connected floors aliases successful integrative containers fitted pinch bladed mats. Three relatives of existent and erstwhile detainees corroborated those accounts.

CoreCivic did not respond erstwhile asked really it defines a “bed.”

Scrambling to Cope

The consequences of overcrowding widen acold beyond Stewart.

“We’re seeing a batch much transfers happening abruptly and frantically,” says Jeff Migliozzi, nan communications head for nan nonprofit Freedom for Immigrants, which runs nan National Immigration Detention Hotline. “They’re scrambling.” Hotline calls much than doubled from 700 successful December to 1,600 successful March. Many spell unanswered, Migliozzi says, because nan lines are often excessively busy.

Dispatch information obtained from these detention accommodation crossed nan US bespeak nan surge. Six of nan 10 accommodation reviewed by WIRED knowledgeable a crisp month-to-month spike successful 911 calls astatine immoderate constituent successful 2025, pinch emergency dispatches much than tripling successful definite cases. For example, astir 80 emergency calls were placed from nan distant South Texas ICE Processing Center betwixt January and May. Logs show that nan number of calls much than tripled successful March, rising from 10 successful February to 31. In 1 week, dispatchers fielded 11 abstracted calls astatine nan facility, which is tally by nan GEO Group, 1 of nan nation’s largest for-profit situation operators.

Migliozzi cautions that a emergence successful 911 calls doesn’t needfully awesome worsening conditions but whitethorn simply bespeak a surging detainee organization wrong an already dire system. Other experts noted a emergence successful calls could, hypothetically, awesome that unit are getting quicker to telephone for help—though, conversely, a diminution mightiness conscionable arsenic easy constituent to delayed responses, not less crises

Three of nan 7 911 calls obtained by WIRED involving termination attempts this twelvemonth came from nan South Texas center: In February, a 36-year-old man swallowed 20 over-the-counter pills. In March, a 37-year-old detainee ingested cleaning chemicals. Two weeks later, a 41-year-old man was recovered cutting himself.

Immigration detention isn’t expected to beryllium punitive, says Anthony Enriquez, vice president of defense astatine Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. “But nan conditions of confinement successful detention are truthful brutal,” he says, “that group person attempted termination while waiting for their time successful court.”