Documented deaths, abuse, medical neglect, and obstructed counsel intensify across a rapidly expanding detention system. Trump simultaneously seeks legal authority to imprison United States citizens at home or abroad.
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Drawbridge, from Carceri d’invenzione (Imaginary Prisons), ca. 1749–1761. Piranesi constructed an impossible prison world whose endless stairways, obstructed passages, and colossal machinery transform confinement into a system without intelligible boundaries or escape.
The Trump administration has opened a legal pathway from United States citizenship into its rapidly expanding detention system. By August 3, 2026, DOJ had filed 123 civil denaturalization complaints since Trump returned to office. Successful cases revoke naturalized citizenship and may expose former citizens to immigration detention and removal.
On April 14, 2025, Trump told Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, “Homegrowns are next,” and demanded approximately five additional prisons. Trump directed then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to determine how his administration could legally imprison United States citizens abroad. On April 25, Trump again said he “would love” to proceed if legally permitted. A Supreme Court decision has weakened procedural barriers to Trump’s ability to imprison ordinary United States citizens.
Federal agents arrested United States Army veteran George Retes during a July 10, 2025 immigration raid in Camarillo, California. Agents exposed Retes to tear gas, restrained him, damaged his vehicle, and jailed him without explanation. Federal authorities released Retes three days later without charges.
The South Texas Family Residential Center at Dilley reopened for family detention in March 2025. The Biden administration had phased out family detention in 2021, and Dilley closed in August 2024. The Flores settlement generally limits detention of immigrant children to approximately 20 days, a requirement contested in ongoing litigation.
Detained families and attorneys reported mold- and worm-contaminated food, inadequate medical care, and around-the-clock lighting. By August 2026, federal data showed at least 60 children had been held at Dilley for 100 days or longer. During its first year after reopening, Dilley held approximately 3,000 children; more than half remained beyond 20 days.
One detained child, identified in court filings as S.M.H., was a 16-year-old Los Angeles high-school student who had lived in the United States since age five. By August 2026, federal immigration authorities had held him and his mother at Dilley for 123 days. His sworn declaration reported a ten-pound weight loss and rooms infested with cockroaches, spiders, and mosquitoes.
Parents and lawyers documented the medical consequences for children at Dilley in federal court filings. A ten-year-old with Hirschsprung’s disease went more than a month without a bowel movement after inadequate medical care and diet. An eighteen-month-old required ten days of hospitalization after pneumonia, RSV, COVID-19, and respiratory distress developed following weeks of inadequate treatment.
Staff left a two-year-old’s infected gum untreated for more than 23 days. Fever and infection followed, accompanied by relentless crying and reliance on a liquid diet. At Adelanto, California Department of Justice investigators documented murky drinking water and inadequate medical treatment. California investigators also documented pepper spray, deficient food and clothing, deficient sanitation, and restricted phone access.
Sworn declarations reported detainees purchasing bottled water through commissary when available water was dirty or insufficient. A federal court ordered officials to provide clean water and adequate food. The court also required sanitation, medical care, clothing, bedding, and outdoor recreation. Four men died at Adelanto between September 2025 and March 2026; all four had received or sought medical services there.
At Delaney Hall in Newark, Salvadoran detainee Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died after a medical emergency in August 2026. His family said he had hypertension, diabetes, and epilepsy requiring medication. The day before his death, he told his mother he had lost feeling in half his face and one arm.
Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights documented 52 deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody during Trump’s first 500 days. From January 2025 through January 2026, the agency’s detention population rose approximately 77 percent. The annualized custodial mortality rate rose approximately 140 percent. The organizations’ analysis placed the trend-level custodial death rate at its highest level in nearly two decades.
From January 2024 through February 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement recorded at least 1,460 incidents involving pepper spray, takedowns, and restraint devices. Force rose under Trump’s second administration against detainees seeking food, water, medical treatment, or protesting facility conditions.
Camp East Montana opened at U.S. Army Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas, in August 2025. By April 2026, the agency’s largest detention facility had approximately 5,000-person capacity. Under Trump’s January 2025 executive order expanding detention, the U.S. Army awarded and administered a $1.3 billion contract. Army and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told GAO that senior leadership’s expedited deadlines dictated acquisition decisions. Trump Administration Officials selected a contractor lacking detention-services experience. Immigration and Customs Enforcement opened Camp East Montana without required pre-occupancy inspection or verification of detention-standard compliance.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement later found untreated chronic illnesses, including diabetes and HIV cases without treatment plans. GAO documented medical-service gaps, unsanitary conditions, and the loss of a loaded firearm. A medical examiner classified a January 2026 detainee death as homicide by asphyxia.
Camp East Montana’s contractor failed to provide required use-of-force records. Investigators reviewing the January 2026 detainee homicide found related evidence missing or destroyed. Another detainee died by suicide after staff failed required monitoring and suicide-resistant placement. Detainees reported beatings, sexual abuse, and harassment.
Detainees also reported unsanitary confinement, spoiled or otherwise inedible food, denied medical treatment, and barriers to counsel and family contact. Sixty-four of 71 Human Rights Watch and ACLU interviewees, approximately 90 percent, experienced or witnessed physical abuse by staff. DHS and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement component sought court orders for involuntary medical procedures against at least ten detained hunger strikers. Federal officials force-fed at least three through nasogastric tubes; many detainees facing the involuntary-procedure proceedings lacked counsel. Federal officials exercised complete custodial control over every person subjected to the involuntary medical procedures.
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Nazi authorities carried out mass extermination and deportation while also subjecting captive populations to internment, starvation, medical deprivation, and systematic abuse. In Geneva on August 12, 1949, states adopted four revised Geneva Conventions. The new Fourth Convention established protections specifically devoted to civilians. The Geneva Conventions strengthened legal restraints protecting civilians after the Second World War exposed catastrophic deficiencies in existing protections.
DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials decide whether immigration detainees remain confined and receive medical treatment and control access to adequate food and clean water. They additionally control recreation and communication and determine whether detainees reach lawyers and families or secure administrative review and release. Captured targets of the Trump administration’s quotas, detained at Dilley, Adelanto, Delaney Hall, and Camp East Montana, cannot escape dangerous conditions.
President Trump directed federal detention and removal policy through executive orders that expanded detention capacity. Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership controlled detention operations and medical standards. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth controlled the Defense Department while the Army administered the Camp East Montana contract.
Federal orders enforcing the Flores settlement at Dilley provided legal notice to DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership. The Adelanto orders in L.T. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement separately provided legal notice to the same federal leadership. Inspection reports and medical findings provided additional notice. Sworn declarations and investigative reports reinforced the documented record. Documented deaths further notified DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Defense Department leadership of conditions producing injury.
Civil immigration detention is not criminal punishment, and governmental custody cannot lawfully become punitive. Counsel barriers prevent detainees from challenging confinement or pursuing asylum or Convention Against Torture protection. Such barriers prevent evidence preservation and judicial review.
The International Committee of the Red Cross holds a Geneva Conventions mandate to promote compliance with international humanitarian law. The organization presses governments to strengthen enforcement. On August 12, 2026, ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric warned that governmental commitment to the Conventions was eroding.
During international armed conflict, national governments party to the Fourth Geneva Convention carry criminal-enforcement duties concerning grave breaches against protected persons or property. Article 146 requires governments to enact criminal penalties and search for persons alleged to have committed or ordered grave breaches. Governments must prosecute alleged offenders or hand them over for trial. Article 147 includes unlawful confinement, deportation or transfer, torture, inhuman treatment, and willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.
United Nations officials separately took formal action challenging Trump administration immigration practices. An April 23, 2025 urgent appeal challenged Alien Enemies Act deportations, arbitrary detention, deficient due process, and non-refoulement violations. UN mandate holders challenged enforced disappearance and inhumane detention conditions.
By the first weekend of August 2026, US federal immigration authorities held approximately 68,000 immigrants in detention nationwide. Federal regulations implementing the Convention Against Torture prohibit removal where a person would more likely than not face torture. Under 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.16–208.17, qualifying applicants receive withholding or deferral upon satisfying the more-likely-than-not torture standard. Cabinet officials receiving credible evidence of a substantial torture risk remain legally obligated to enforce federal prohibitions against removal to torture.
As of August 23, 2026, New York barred state and local facilities from holding people for federal immigration authorities and required existing agreements terminated. Pennsylvania’s environmental orders forced withdrawal of two proposed facilities totaling 9,000 beds. Maryland’s preliminary injunction continued blocking construction and operation of the Williamsport facility. New Jersey continued litigating against the proposed Roxbury center while investigating Delaney Hall.
Massachusetts maintained restrictions protecting state facilities from civil immigration arrests and staging. Washington secured judicial authority for health inspections at Tacoma’s private detention center. California’s June lawsuit seeking to block the proposed Gilroy facility remained pending. These measures constrain state cooperation, facility construction, or detention conditions; they cannot categorically prevent federal arrests.
Deportation officers assigned to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations directorate can seize targeted residents and transfer them across state lines. The directorate controls detention placement, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement Air Operations conducts transfer flights. State contract bans close local cells but leave Trump’s national arrest-and-detention apparatus operational.
During Hitler’s first eleven months in power, historians estimate that Nazi authorities subjected approximately 150,000 to 200,000 people to temporary detention without trial. By the end of July 1933, nearly 27,000 people, virtually all political prisoners, were incarcerated simultaneously in Nazi concentration camps. By October 1934, mass releases had reduced the concentration-camp population to approximately 2,400 prisoners while the SS consolidated control over the camp system.
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”— President Donald Trump, referring to six Democratic military and intelligence veterans in Congress who urged service members to refuse unlawful orders, Truth Social, November 20, 2025
Federal immigration detention reached approximately 73,000 people on January 15, 2026, the highest point recorded during Trump’s second administration to that date. Trump border czar Tom Homan publicly set a goal of at least 100,000 detention beds. Congress appropriated $45 billion for adult and family detention capacity through fiscal year 2029. During Senate debate, the late Senator Lindsey Graham stated that the legislation would expand detention capacity from 40,000 to 125,000 beds. The agency’s current construction and acquisition program separately projects 92,600 operational beds by November 2026, including eight large detention facilities, 16 regional facilities, and ten additional turnkey facilities.
“Everybody on that committee … honestly, they should go to jail.”— Donald Trump, referring to members of the House January 6 Committee, Meet the Press, December 8, 2024
The August 2026 federal immigration-detention population already exceeded the July 1933 Nazi concentration-camp population by more than two and a half times. The January 15, 2026 peak approached 2.7 times that population. A 125,000-bed detention system would permit simultaneous confinement of approximately 4.6 times the nearly 27,000 people incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps six months after Hitler became chancellor.
President Donald Trump and his Cabinet are expanding a national confinement system increasingly marked by deaths, force-feeding, and severe medical neglect. Citizens must sound the alarm until every person associated is held to account. Incremental escalation and secrecy enabled Hitler’s regime to murder approximately twelve million targeted people before military defeat ended the extermination.
Readers can email the International Pediatric Association at adminoffice@ipa-world.org. Ask foe their Child Rights and Child Protection leadership to examine the documented treatment of children detained at Dilley. Request a public medical statement addressing prolonged confinement, medical neglect, and custodial abuse.
“One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.” — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture in Literature, 1970
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Sources
United States Department of Justice, record denaturalization filings, August 3, 2026.
Politico, Trump’s support for imprisoning United States citizens abroad, April 25, 2025.
Reuters, George Retes’s three-day detention and release without charges, July 17, 2025.
Supreme Court docket, Trump v. CASA, Inc., June 27, 2025.
Supreme Court, Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001).
The Washington Post, reopening of the South Texas Family Residential Center at Dilley, March 5, 2025.
The Texas Tribune, prolonged child detention, Flores litigation, S.M.H.’s declaration, and Dilley conditions, August 12, 2026.
The Texas Tribune, contaminated food, medical neglect, and prolonged family confinement at Dilley, March 11, 2026.
California Department of Justice, statewide immigration-detention inspection findings.
The Guardian, Edwin Lopez-Cornejo’s death at Delaney Hall, August 3, 2026.
Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, Dying in Detention: Rising Deaths in an Expanding US Immigration Detention System, June 25, 2026.
The Washington Post, 1,460 documented federal immigration-detention use-of-force incidents, May 4, 2026.
United States Government Accountability Office, Immigration Detention: Waste and Performance Issues at Camp East Montana Provide Valuable Lessons for Future Facilities, GAO-26-108886.
Human Rights Watch and ACLU, You’re Only Getting Out Deported or Dead: Abusive US Immigration Detention at Ft. Bliss, July 15, 2026.
The Guardian, court orders and involuntary procedures used against detained hunger strikers, August 3, 2026.
Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.16–208.17.
International Committee of the Red Cross, mandate and mission.
International Committee of the Red Cross, Fourth Geneva Convention.
OHCHR Special Procedures communications database.
United Nations Special Procedures urgent appeal USA 14/2025, April 23, 2025.
The Washington Post, Trump’s statement that House January 6 Committee members “should go to jail,” December 8, 2024.
CBS News, federal immigration detention reaching approximately 73,000 people, January 16, 2026.
New York Senate, Dignity Not Detention Act, May 21, 2026.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, withdrawal of two proposed detention facilities.
New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, Delaney Hall civil-rights investigation, August 7, 2026.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, restrictions protecting sensitive state facilities.
California Attorney General, lawsuit challenging development of the proposed Gilroy facility.
United States Congress, Congressional Record.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Political Prisoners”.
Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015).
The Wiener Holocaust Library and Birkbeck, University of London, research concerning the early Nazi concentration-camp system.
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