As the current federal administration rounded up an increasing number of immigrants, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding more than 75,000 in mid-January alone, we heard scattered, localized complaints from detainees alleging medical neglect. We wondered about the extent of the problems and whether the agency and its contractors were keeping pace with detainees’ medical needs nationwide. But no central repository exists, so we had to get creative — and dive into a trove of court records. Detainees are filing record numbers of habeas corpus petitions in federal court, arguing they’re being held illegally. Sometimes those cases mention medical conditions. But a federal rule makes immigration filings tricky to obtain because they’re usually available only in person at the court where they were filed. The nation has 94 of those courts. However, a nonprofit collecting such records through a national network of volunteers gave us documents from thousands of those court cases dating to last January. We teamed up with The Associated Press to dive into them. In analyzing those files, we found that hundreds of detainees in at least 33 states told courts they’d received inadequate medical care. They said that they didn’t get their medications on time — or at all — for everything from diabetes to Parkinson’s to HIV. They told courts their requests for medical help had gone unanswered for weeks, that their blood sugars rose, infections festered, and cancers went untreated. Some said they had collapsed and had seizures. Court filings described how one…
