Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. She can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com.

I first heard about Delvin Francisco Rodriguez four months ago when ICE published a notification about his death on its website. 

The agency shared only a few details.

According to the post, Rodriguez, 39, who was being held at the ICE detention center in Adams County, Mississippi, had died after a medical emergency landed him at Merit Health hospital in Natchez, in December. 

A second post two months later said that Rodriguez had tried to hang himself in the detention center. Staff members found him, tried to revive him and sent him to the hospital, the report said, but Rodriguez did not regain consciousness and his family agreed to remove him from life support about 10 days later.

At the time, that’s all we knew from official sources.

When I read ICE’s version of events, as sparse as they were, I didn’t have a specific reason to wonder if there was more to the story. Still, the unexpected deaths of people living in ICE custody were becoming a flashpoint.

When Rodriguez died, on Dec. 14, he was the fourth person in four days to die in ICE custody across the nation.

It was a grim year. ICE reported 33 in-custody deaths in 2025, making it the deadliest year for ICE detention centers since the agency was formed. Complaints of deplorable living conditions, spoiled food and medical neglect had been piling up.

The high rate of deaths has continued this year, with ICE reporting 15 more through early April. Several of the deaths have been ruled suicides. And last month, The Associated Press reported that guards in a Texas ICE facility had been overheard betting on which detainee would die by suicide next.

In light of all this, I started trying to learn more about what exactly happened to Rodriguez.

I knew that ICE was unlikely to share details beyond what it had already published on its website. In the five times I’ve reached out to its local spokesman, he has never answered my questions or provided a comment. Representatives for CoreCivic, a private prison operator that runs the Natchez facility, have been polite and responsive but not particularly informative. 

Regardless, I started working on a list of questions for ICE and CoreCivic. I knew Rodriguez had been arrested in September and held somewhere else before his transfer to Mississippi. Where had ICE held him, and what had happened there? Does ICE pass along details regarding the well-being of detainees when they change facilities? And if so, had it communicated any such information about Rodriguez to administrators at Adams?

In the meantime, I had been trying – unsuccessfully – to find Rodriguez’s family. But I had a breakthrough earlier this week when I came across a post about Rodriguez’s death that had been published in January by a nonprofit based in Colorado called Voces Unidas. I hadn’t seen this post before, and it raised some concerning questions from Rodriguez’s family about the circumstances surrounding his death. 

On Tuesday, I got in touch with Alex Sanchez, the president and chief executive of Voces Unidas. He explained how his organization had helped Rodriguez hire a lawyer for his immigration case, and how it was now trying to help Rodriguez’s family learn more about his death. 

Sanchez agreed to ask Rodriguez’s family if they would be willing to speak to me. He told me that they had been fearing retaliation and would want to remain anonymous. 

He also told me that there were several reasons Rodriguez’s family felt like ICE wasn’t telling the full story. 

He said Rodriguez had agreed to self-deport the same month he was arrested, in September 2025. Rodriguez had been in touch with his mother back in Nicaragua, making plans for his return – even asking her to buy clothing for him.

Up until the day before Rodriguez was taken to the hospital, he had been talking regularly to his sisters by phone. His biggest frustration had been that he was being detained indefinitely,  months after he had voluntarily agreed to leave the country. Rodriguez did not show any signs that he was going to harm himself, Sanchez said. 

Rodriguez had described his unit as one of the big ones, a large room where more than 100 people shared living space. But after his death, Sanchez said, Rodriguez’s family was told that he had been found hanging in a cell. They did not receive an explanation for why he was in a cell. By this point, multiple detainees I’d interviewed had told me that the individual cells in the Adams facility are used either to discipline detainees who break the rules or to quarantine sick detainees. 

Sanchez also recounted that Rodriguez’s family found his death suspicious because of a video conversation they’d had with the nurses who were taking care of Rodriguez in his final days at Merit Health in Natchez before he was finally removed from the ventilator. According to the family, the nurses said Rodriguez’s injuries seemed inconsistent with what ICE was telling them – that Rodriguez had hung himself with a sheet, Sanchez said. The nurses also noted that Rodriguez had an injury on his forehead that didn’t look like it could have come from hanging, Sanchez said.

On Wednesday, Brian Todd, a CoreCivic spokesman, responded to my questions with a written statement. I had asked specifically about where Rodriguez had been housed and where he was found, and for details of his mental well-being and security footage of the incident, but Todd didn’t answer any of those questions. 

He expressed sadness on behalf of the company and said Adams detainees had “daily access” to medical care, including mental health services. He noted that Rodriguez had been discovered around 4:15 p.m., which was new information. 

Nobody I reached out to at ICE has responded to the questions I emailed them earlier this week. But I have also filed a public records request with ICE asking for the report it is required to prepare after it reviews an in-custody death, Rodriguez’s detention history and footage of the incident. I’ll let you know how ICE responds. 

The email and statement from Brian Todd of CoreCivic regarding the death of Delvin Francisco Radriguez:

We are deeply saddened by the passing of any individual in our care, and we take each instance very seriously. The safety, health and well-being of the people entrusted to us is our top priority. 

As you previously reported, on December 4, 2025, at approximately 4:15 p.m., Adams County Correctional Center (ACCC) staff responded to a medical emergency involving an unresponsive detainee inside their living area. Staff immediately began lifesaving measures. EMS was called, and paramedics transported the individual by ambulance to a local hospital. Our partners at ICE were notified immediately.

On December 14, ACCC leadership was informed by the hospital that the detainee had passed away. As with all incidents of this nature, it has been thoroughly reviewed in accordance with established protocols and in coordination with our government partners.

We adhere to all applicable federal detention standards in our ICE-contracted facilities, including ACCC. These facilities are monitored very closely by our government partners, and they are required to undergo regular review and audit processes to ensure an appropriate standard of living and care for all detainees.

Solitary Confinement
Solitary confinement, whether as a term or in practice, does not exist in CoreCivic facilities. Restrictive housing is in place for various reasons, including medical and mental health observation and administrative or investigative purposes. Individuals in restrictive housing maintain full access to courts, visitation, mail, showers, meals, all medical facilities and recreation. We always strive to ensure detainees are cared for in the least restrictive environment necessary to maintain their safety and security, as well as that of the institution.

Medical and Mental Health Care
CoreCivic is committed to providing access to high-quality medical and mental health care for all residents. At ACCC, the onsite medical clinic is staffed by licensed health care professionals including physicians, nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health counselors and dentists who contractually meet the highest standards of care, as verified by multiple audits and inspections. All detainees have daily access to sign up for medical care, including mental health services. CoreCivic also ensures access to offsite care for residents by coordinating with staff, government partners, community physicians, hospitals and ambulatory care providers. In 2024 alone, there were over 800,000 onsite medical and mental health care encounters in CoreCivic facilities. All CoreCivic staff are trained in CPR and first aid.

Brian Todd
Manager, Public Affairs

Mukta Joshi, an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today, is a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining the ICE detention facility at Adams County Correctional Center. States Newsroom is partnering with Mississippi Today and The New York Times on this project. Mukta can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com. You can read the entire series here.

The Adams County Correctional Center, one of more than 200 ICE detention facilities in the U.S., is located near the city of Natchez on a sprawling 14-acre site in southwestern Mississippi.

The facility, which holds more than 2,000 people, is a significant economic driver in a county of fewer than 30,000 residents. CoreCivic employs approximately 400 people there, making it one of the largest employers in Adams County. Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said CoreCivic is the county’s single largest taxpayer.

The federal government sets strict limits on who can visit Immigration and Custom Enforcement detention centers. And nearly all of them are run by for-profit companies, making the details of their operation private and difficult to monitor. 

So far, this is what we know.

Who owns it?

The Adams facility is privately owned and operated by CoreCivic Inc., a publicly traded company based in Tennessee. 

One of the largest private prison companies in the country, it disclosed in its most recent financial filings that it owns or controls about 57% of all privately owned prison beds in the U.S. 

The company, which reported $2.2 billion in revenue last year, has benefited financially from the Trump administration’s push to arrest immigrants. From 2024 to 2025, revenue increased by nearly $200 million thanks largely to an increase in ICE detentions, according to the company’s latest annual report.

Over the past few years, CoreCivic, its employees and PACs have poured millions of dollars into political donations and lobbying. In the 2024 election cycle, 84% of these donations went to Republican candidates. In the same cycle, CoreCivic spent more than $1.7 million lobbying, according to OpenSecrets. The previous year, it spent more than $1.6 million.

The Adams County facility is one of two ICE facilities operated by CoreCivic in the state. A second CoreCivic facility in Tutwiler, in northern Mississippi, was authorized last year to start housing ICE detainees.

What kinds of people are detained there? 

The Adams facility is a men’s facility. Most of its detainees are not from Mississippi. They were picked up by ICE agents somewhere else and are being held here until they decide to leave the country, or until an immigration judge deports them or sets them free.

Being in the U.S. without proper documentation is a civil infraction, like a speeding ticket – not a criminal violation. This fact has contributed to controversy about prison-like conditions that people detained by ICE are experiencing.

Only 9% of people in the Adams center have any sort of criminal conviction. But even those with criminal records are being held for civil immigration infractions, not as punishment. 

In addition to men, the facility currently houses a small number of transgender women. Following President Trump’s 2025 executive order, transgender people are required to be incarcerated in facilities that align with their gender assigned at birth, regardless of their legal status.

How long are detainees held?

In early 2025, then-warden Jason Streeval was quoted by the Natchez Democrat as saying that the average stay in the facility was about 60 days but had been getting longer. He told the newspaper that some detainees had been there for as long as seven months. 

Has the facility ever been the subject of controversy? 

The Adams facility made headlines in 2012, when an inmate protest against poor conditions snowballed into a riot that resulted in the killing of a guard. The FBI opened an investigation, leading to a number of inmates being charged and ultimately sentenced for participating in the riot. In the wake of the riot, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson called for an investigation into CoreCivic, then operating as Corrections Corporation of America.

One section of the facility, known as the “Zulu” unit, contains solitary confinement cells, where detainees are housed as punishment. In 2020, two nonprofit groups submitted a written complaint to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security alleging that immigrants from Cameroon had been tortured by ICE officers in that ward and forced to sign deportation documents. A year later, the complaint was still unresolved, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. A representative for ICE did not respond to an inquiry about the current status of the complaint.

In 2021, an inspection by DHS found that Adams generally had provided sufficient medical care but identified one case in which the medical unit examined a sick detainee but did not send the person to the hospital. The detainee died. 

DHS also found that Adams didn’t meet other federal standards. Among the cited failures: It did not respond to grievances in a timely manner, it inadequately implemented COVID-19 safety protocols and it failed to assist vulnerable detainees. The ACLU called for the facility to be shut down.

What’s life like inside? 

The facility is divided into units, each holding about 140 people who share eight toilets and 15 showers, according to detainees interviewed by Mississippi Today. While inside, detainees can work if they choose, helping to clean, run the kitchen or do laundry. Several people held at the center said they were paid about $3.50 per day for their work.

Detainees are generally restricted to their own unit, where they can move about freely. One detainee said he was allowed to visit a secure outdoor area once every four or five days.

Several detainees described harsh conditions, but said that they had spent time in other facilities that were far dirtier and more restrictive. 

We don’t know much beyond that, especially about what the detention center looks like inside. A detainee who can afford the fees can send messages and make video calls from inside. They can’t send photos or attachments. And the communication app blurs their background and obscures the video completely if the camera is aimed away from the detainee’s face during a call.

How much does it cost to run? 

The contract to run this facility, like most other ICE detention centers, is an “Intragovernmental Service Agreement” between ICE, CoreCivic and Adams County. The 2019 agreement shows that ICE had agreed to pay a $3.9 million monthly flat rate for the facility, an amount set to increase every year. There have since been changes to this contract, but they were not immediately accessible. 

When we requested an interview with the warden and assistant warden, a spokesperson for CoreCivic redirected us to the company’s public affairs office and requested us to send our questions in writing. 

Over the next few months, we plan to publish weekly dispatches about the facility and about ICE detention in Mississippi and do our best to address these unanswered questions. You’ll be able to find my reporting on the Mississippi Today website, on our social media channels and in our Friday newsletter. And you can follow me on X @mukta_jo.

In the meantime, please fill out our survey. If you know something about the detention center, if you know someone who works there or is detained there, or want me to find out something about it for readers, please get in touch.

Clarification 3/27/26: This story has been updated to clarify the types of detainees held in the Adams County Correctional Center.

In Milwaukee, the family of a woman detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) joined local activists in pleading for her release. Elvira Benitez, who was born in Mexico, has never been in trouble with the law since she came to the United States 36 years ago. But Benitez was taken into custody earlier this month after a routine check-in, and transported out of state to a detention facility in Kentucky. 

“I’m asking all of you to put aside your biases and put aside preconceived notions, and simply look at the facts of Elvira’s case,” said attorney Marc Christopher during a press conference Thursday. “And I think that if you look at it not through a political lens, not through a preconceived lens but through a lens of justice, integrity, and fairness…These are values our country has traditionally upheld, I think you’ll find her to be an extremely sympathetic case.”

Christopher, hoping to reach people both in and outside of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), recounted the story of what led Benitez to America. “I want you to imagine a 15-year-old girl whose mother has died. She’s living in poverty in Mexico, and she’s facing the most extreme and terrible abuse at the hands of her own family. She then takes her 9-year-old sister and together they flee, crossing a desert with no guarantee of safety, no certainty, and nowhere to turn. It’s not a calculated decision that that 15-year-old child made. It was a decision of survival. That girl is Elvira, 36 years ago.”

When she arrived in the United States, said Christopher, “she did what we say we all value.” Benitez worked, paid her taxes, learned English, and raised four children. She became active in her church, started a small cleaning business, and never crossed paths with the law for over three decades. “Not a jaywalking ticket, not even for anything minor,” said Christopher. 

Benitez’s world turned upside down last July. During a family trip to Niagara Falls, GPS led the family on a wrong turn towards Canada. After they turned around, both Benitez and her husband were detained at the border. Husband and wife were separated, one sent to northern Michigan and the other to Ohio. “The extended family was then required to travel to Michigan to pick up the two youngest children,” said Christopher. “For the next six months they had to endure something that you hope no family would have to endure — absolute separation from each other.”

Benitez was incarcerated with  people who had committed  serious criminal offenses. When her case was finally reviewed by an immigration judge, the judge found that Benitez was a good candidate for permanent residency. Benitez was able to go home in December, a week before Christmas, to spend time with her family. Then, on March 10, when Benitez went for a routine check-in at the ICE office. As she walked out, she was detained. The federal government had decided to appeal Benitez’s release, on the very last day they were able to do so. 

Stressing that the law does not require that she  be detained, Christopher asked, “What  purpose does this really serve? What does it say about us as a county, and us as a society?” Benitez was shackled and shipped to Chicago, then transported to Kentucky. Christopher added that people who question why Benitez didn’t get her citizenship after 36 years do not understand the immigration system. He said that it is not fair or practical to expect a traumatized, desperate 15-year-old girl to understand immigration laws, and that Benitez integrated into American society and followed all the rules. 

Benitez’s husband and children sat beside Christopher during the press conference. “My wife is not a criminal but she is being treated that way,” her husband said, calling her detention physical and emotional abuse. Her oldest daughter, Kristal, said her mother’s case is not about politics.  “it’s about being a human.” Benitez’s two youngest children, ages 11 and 12, said they miss their mother, and the 12-year-old broke down and cried.  

A family friend of Benitez spoke about Benitez’s participation in church and community events, and said that she’s “ashamed of what’s going on in our country right now.” Kristal said that Benitez is having a hard time, having just endured an extended time in immigration detention last year. “She’s literally in despair,” said Kristal. “She’s having a hard time remaining strong this time around. She was getting her freedom again, and then taken again…And she’s scared. She is with the general population…So she’s terrified, scared that something might happen to her and she just wants to be home and she doesn’t see any hope.” 

The federal government’s appeal of Benitez’s case could take up to 18 months, meaning she’ll likely be detained for more than a year. Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, said that using ICE detention to crush people’s hopes is an intentional strategy of the Trump administration. Neumann-Ortiz praised the Benitez family’s bravery, saying  people are often fearful of speaking out about their experiences with ICE. 

Voces de la Frontera has been collecting and verifying  reports of ICE arrests in Milwaukee. 

In early May, the group is planning a  march to Milwaukee’s federal building, calling for an end to Trump’s deportation campaign and to call for reform to the immigration system.  

In an emailed statement, a DHS spokesperson described Benitez in bold black text as “an illegal alien from Mexico” and said “she will receive full due process.” The spokesperson stated, “being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the [Customs and Border Protection] Home app. The United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”

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WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, the president’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, on Wednesday in his confirmation hearing was challenged with questions about his “anger issues” by the fellow Republican who heads the Senate committee that oversees the department.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, chair of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, at the outset of the hearing recalled how Mullin called him a “freaking snake” and expressed sympathy for a neighbor who assaulted Paul in a 2017 dispute, breaking six of his ribs and damaging a lung.

“You have never had the courage to look me in the eye and tell me that the assault was justified,” Paul said to Mullin, nominated by President Donald Trump to replace Kristi Noem as secretary of the 260,000-employee agency. “Tell it to my face, if that’s what you believe.”

In a tense back-and-forth, Mullin defended himself and said he never “supported” that Paul was assaulted, but that he “understood” why the neighbor attacked Paul.

“I think everybody in this room knows that I’m very blunt,” Mullin, a former MMA fighter who physically challenged a witness testifying before Congress in 2023, said. 

Paul criticized him and “this machismo that you have” and raised concerns about how Mullin could lead a department and “why (the American public) should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and Border Patrol agents.” 

Noem was ousted from the job after a national uproar over the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January by immigration agents and public disapproval of aggressive enforcement tactics there and in Los Angeles and Chicago.

“I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force,” Paul said. 

Mullin did not apologize for his comments regarding Paul’s assault, and said that leading DHS is “bigger than the political differences we have.”

Mullin detailed his plans to senators, pledging to reverse several policies of his predecessor, including making sure “DHS isn’t on the news every day.” 

Mullin also promised to get DHS fully funded and continue to carry out the president’s mass deportation agenda. 

If confirmed, he will have access to a special funding stream of $175 billion for DHS included in 2025’s “one big, beautiful” tax and spending cut package, which Mullin backed as a senator. 

Post-Noem era

Trump shifted Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, into another administration position earlier this month. 

Her tenure drew bipartisan ire over her quick judgment to label the two U.S. citizens killed by immigration agents as domestic terrorists, her stalling of disaster relief grants for states, and the award of a $220 million no-bid contract for an ad campaign to a firm owned by a subordinate’s spouse. 

Paul said the committee plans to vote Thursday on whether to advance Mullin’s nomination to the Senate floor. Trump has said he wants Mullin on the job by the end of the month.

If the Senate confirms Mullin, he would be the first Native American to lead DHS. He is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, told reporters Wednesday that he was confident Mullin could be confirmed as Homeland Security secretary. 

“Rand and Markwayne have some personal history which they’re going to have to work through,” Thune said. “But this is about the job, and it’s about who ought to fill that job. We all believe … that Markwayne is the right guy for the job.”

One Democrat already a yes

The junior senator from Oklahoma, who was elected to the Senate in a 2022 special election, does not need any Democratic support to be confirmed to lead the agency, since Republicans control the chamber with 53 seats.

And even without Paul’s support, one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who sits on the committee, has already pledged his vote. 

Mullin, if confirmed, will take over a department shut down since early February, after Democrats refused to vote for fiscal year 2026 funding unless changes to immigration enforcement are made following the deaths of the two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. 

The top Democrat on Homeland Security, Gary Peters, pressed Mullin about his previous comments about Good and Pretti. Mullin joined top Trump officials in accusing both of being agitators. 

Mullin admitted his mistake and said he was too quick to judge. 

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Mullin said. “I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately without the facts. That’s my fault. That won’t happen as (Homeland Security) secretary.”

Noem has never admitted she was wrong to label Good, a mother of three and poet, and Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse who specialized in care for veterans, as domestic terrorists. She was criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for her comments.

On Wednesday, Republicans on the panel largely praised Mullin, except for Paul, and criticized Democrats for not approving government funding for DHS.

House Democrats are trying to force a legislative procedure to bring a funding bill for DHS that does not include any appropriations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

ICE questions

Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin pressed Mullin on reforms he would make to ICE. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, asked Mullin about an arrest quota of 3,000 immigrants daily that White House senior advisor Stephen Miller, the main architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, has set for ICE officers.

“I can’t speak for Stephen Miller,” Mullin said. “No quota has been set for me.”

Blumenthal also pressed Mullin about concerns over violations of the 4th Amendment of the Constitution by federal immigration agents entering homes and businesses without a judicial warrant. 

He asked Mullin if he would “commit that ICE will no longer instruct agents to break into people’s homes without a judicial warrant?”

“Sir, you’re using the word ‘break into’ people’s houses loosely,” Mullin said. “We will not enter a home or place of business without a judicial warrant unless we’re pursuing an individual that runs into a business or resident.”

Blumenthal also addressed Noem’s award of the $220 million no-bid contract, which she was grilled about by unhappy Republicans in a congressional hearing shortly before Trump removed her as secretary of DHS.

Mullin said that he would let the inspector general, an independent agency within DHS, continue with an investigation. 

“I’ll leave that to the (Inspector General),” Mullin said.  

Detention warehouse purchases

Democrats pressed Mullin if he would keep certain policies in place made by Noem, whose last day is March 31, and questioned recent moves by DHS to purchase warehouses across the country for mass detention of immigrants in the country without legal status. 

New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim said a policy from Noem has led to a backlog in Federal Emergency Management Agency relief. Noem instituted a requirement that she had to personally sign off on any FEMA award totaling more than $100,000. 

Kim asked Mullin if he would consider getting rid of that policy.

“Absolutely,” Mullin said. “That is micromanaging.”

Kim also brought up a warehouse recently purchased by DHS in Roxbury, New Jersey, to detain up to 1,500 immigrants that has concerned local community leaders.

“Most municipalities don’t have the capacity and their infrastructure for waste and water” to handle a warehouse that is meant to detain people, Kim said. 

“This town has only 42 foot police officers, a volunteer fire department. Does that sound like the kind of town that has resources to take on a warehouse?” he asked Mullin.

Mullin did not say DHS would stop its warehouse initiative, but said he wanted to make sure that the local communities were on board, and pledged to personally visit that location with Kim to meet with leaders. 

New Hampshire’s Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan also raised the issue of a warehouse location in her state. DHS initially planned to purchase a warehouse in Merrimack to retrofit the facility to detain immigrants, but backed off.

She asked Mullin if he would “ensure that the plan remains off the table?” 

Mullin said he wasn’t caught up on that specific facility, but that he would work to get the local community’s input.  

More FEMA questions

Fellow Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford asked Mullin how he sees the future of FEMA. The president has expressed his desire to dismantle the agency, and a FEMA review council was formed to issue a report on its findings. 

Mullin said that FEMA should not be considered a first response agency, and that when natural disasters strike, it’s the state response that is first. 

“We can be more effective and be more direct and speed it up,” he said. 

Mullin added that he doesn’t believe FEMA should be dismantled, but that it could be restructured. 

Mullin’s overseas ventures

The top Republican and Democrat on the committee, Paul and Peters, grilled Mullin on his past comments on a 2016 international trip taken while he served in the House. During a Fox News interview, Mullin implied he had been on military missions and could “smell war.” Mullin has not served in the military.

Mullin declined to discuss those comments, arguing that the travel was while he was on official duty and classified. He described those trips as for training purposes.

Peters asked why the trip wasn’t included in his disclosure records to the committee, and Mullin argued that because it was considered official travel, he didn’t need to disclose it.

Paul said he would consider postponing the committee’s vote unless Mullin would agree to visit a secure facility where classified matters are discussed, known as a SCIF, to detail his international travel. 

Mullin said he would go to a SCIF with lawmakers ahead of the committee vote Thursday. 

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

 

Leer in espanol. 

Andrea Pedro-Francisco was supposed to have surgery more than a month ago.

A cyst on her ovary has swelled to nearly the size of a tennis ball and is now at risk of rupturing or cutting off blood supply. The pain is so severe that her doctor prescribed her an opioid.

She’s only received Tylenol or ibuprofen for the pain since she was arrested on her way to work on Feb. 5 in Minnesota and shipped to a Texas detention center, where she’s waiting for a judge to decide whether her detention is even legal.

“I want to be able to go back to my family,” Pedro-Francisco, 23, said in Spanish in a video interview, wearing a navy blue sweatshirt and looking ashen. “I feel sad. I feel tired. I feel desperate to get out of here and see my family again.”

Her case has been taken up by a team of pro bono attorneys and even members of Congress, but to little avail.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, who represents the Twin Cities suburbs where Pedro-Francisco lives, sent inquiries to Homeland Security officials hoping to pressure them to provide adequate medical treatment.

Craig says she’s been stonewalled with demands for various forms and out-of-office messages citing the partial government shutdown. She said she considered flying to El Paso to conduct an oversight visit but the facility is currently in lockdown because of a measles outbreak.

“We are very worried she could have an infection right now … and the Trump administration won’t do a damn thing about it,” Craig said in an interview. “I don’t want Andrea to die.”

ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

Pedro-Francisco is one of 4,000 immigrants the Trump administration says it arrested during Operation Metro Surge — although it has not provided an accounting of all those arrests — with some 3,000 federal agents descending on Minnesota for what the Department of Homeland Security called its largest operation ever.

Many have been ordered released by federal judges who ruled their detentions unlawful. But many others remain languishing in federal facilities across the country even if, like Pedro-Francisco, they have no criminal record and have lived in the United States for years.

While the Trump administration repeatedly claimed to be targeting the “worst of the worst,” the vast majority of those arrested during Trump’s second term have no violent criminal charges or convictions, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS News.

Taken on the way to work

Pedro-Francisco left her native Guatemala for the United States with her mother to seek asylum in 2019 when she was 16 years old. They arrived in Minnesota with virtually nothing and debt from the journey.

They quickly built a new life. They found jobs cleaning houses, moved into a house in Burnsville, and joined a church. Pedro-Francisco sings in the choir and plays the bajo, a Mexican bass guitar.

“I came here with my family to do something, to achieve something with my own strength, with my own hands. And after that, they took me away,” Pedro-Francisco said.

Pedro-Francisco was driving to work with her mother and a neighbor one Thursday morning when they were stopped by two unmarked vehicles. One parked in front and the other behind. Half a dozen masked men surrounded them, demanding to see their documents, she said.

She said she doesn’t know why they stopped her. There was no warrant for her arrest.

It could be they ran the license plate and saw a Hispanic name. Or because the federal agents believed three Latina women in a car was reason enough to initiate a stop. A federal judge appointed by President Trump found that Homeland Security has racially profiled Latino and Somali residents and arrested them without probable cause, which while unconstitutional, nevertheless yielded results as the Trump administration pursues mass deportations.

The agents put handcuffs on Pedro-Francisco and her neighbor.

Her mother pleaded with an agent to let her go, telling him there was no one to care for her children. She has two younger children, a 5- and a 1-year old, both U.S. citizens.

“‘Who’s going to take care of my children?’ I asked him,” said Pedro-Francisco’s mother in an interview in Spanish, choking back tears. She was granted anonymity due to her fear of retribution from federal officials.

“Then he said, ‘Okay, we’re going to let you go, but only today … If another group catches you, they’ll take you away.’”

She gave her daughter one last hug, and the agents placed Pedro-Francisco, handcuffed, in the back of the unmarked car.

Within a couple hours she was on a flight to Texas.

‘They treat us like animals’ 

Pedro-Francisco was taken to Camp East Montana, a troubled tent prison on the site of a former World War II detention camp for Japanese Americans at Fort Bliss near El Paso.

It was hurriedly constructed last summer to meet the growing need for detention space after the Trump administration enacted a policy of mandatory detention for many undocumented immigrants, even those who have lived in the country for years with no criminal history.

The detention facility is now ICE’s largest: around 3,000 people packed into long tent structures. Pedro-Francisco says she is kept in a room with around 60 people except for about an hour a day, when they are chained together and taken outside.

“They chain us up as if we had committed a very serious crime,” Pedro-Francisco said. “They treat us like animals.”

The ceiling leaks when it rains. The food is inedible. Pedro-Francisco says she’s lost around 10 lbs.

The crowded conditions have also made it a hotbed of disease, with outbreaks of COVID-19, tuberculosis and the measles.

Three detainees died in the facility in a six-week period, including a man who was suffocated in a struggle with multiple guards. His death was ruled a homicide. Suicide attempts are so common that some guards take bets on which detainee will succeed next, according to a former detainee who spoke to the Associated Press.

With complaints of crowded quarters, medical neglect and poor nutrition mounting, ICE recently terminated the $1.3 billion contract with the company operating the facility, Acquisition Logistics. It had never run an ICE detention facility before — nor did it even have a functioning website.

When Pedro-Francisco arrived in early February, she wasn’t receiving any medication except the occasional Tylenol. The pain in her abdomen became so unbearable that within a couple days she was taken to a hospital, where she says a doctor confirmed the cyst yet declined to operate on her because she’s in immigration custody.

As the weeks have passed, she can feel herself getting sicker.

Instead of medical care, ICE has offered her another solution: self-deport. Every two or three days, she says, ICE officials enter their room to ask people to sign forms agreeing to voluntary removal.

Many have taken it, including a man from Minnesota whose lawyer said he only agreed because he was being denied medication for his diabetes.

“But my purpose, for me, here in the midst of suffering, pain and illness, my purpose is to be able to return to my family,” Pedro-Francisco said.

Caught in red tape and judicial delays

By swiftly transferring Pedro-Francisco to Texas, ICE has made it harder for her and other people arrested in Minnesota to challenge their detention through what’s called a habeas corpus petition. That seems to be by design.

Minnesota U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank wrote that he’s seen a “pattern of obfuscation” with ICE “attempting to hide the location of detainees, and thus, make habeas proceedings more difficult.”

Judges in Minnesota have been in revolt over the Trump administration’s policy of mandatory detention and repeated violations of their orders to release immigrants, even threatening the U.S. attorney with contempt.

While judges in Texas have also largely ruled against the Trump administration, the ultra-conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in its favor, making Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi more favorable venues for the administration to defend a policy that contradicts three decades of precedent.

Federal officials have said they simply ran out of space to hold people in Minnesota during an unprecedented surge in arrests.

Approximately 200 people detained in Minnesota have been transferred out-of-state and remain in detention centers across the country — in Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Nebraska and Mississippi — according to Sarah Brenes, executive director of the Binger Center at the University of Minnesota Law School and one of the directors of the Minnesota Habeas Project.

By the time Pedro-Francisco was connected with a lawyer, she was already in Texas. Her case was taken up by attorney Asra Syed, managing partner at the Austin law firm Botkin Chiarello Calaf. She was referred to Pedro-Francisco’s case through the informal network of volunteer lawyers that sprung up during Operation Metro Surge.

Syed filed a habeas corpus petition to challenge Pedro-Francisco’s detention on Feb. 13 and mentioned her urgent need for medical attention. While the federal government usually has three days to justify its detention of a person, U.S. Judge Leon Schydlower gave the government more than three weeks from when the petition was filed to respond.

“She doesn’t have a way to get the health care that she needs unless she’s out of detention. And how is she supposed to get out of detention unless the judge rules on the habeas petition quickly?” Syed said.

In the interim, Syed filed two more motions asking the court to speed up Pedro-Francisco’s case and order the federal government to administer her prescribed medications and have her examined by an independent hospital physician. They went unanswered.

Syed also reached out to her representative, Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, who connected her with Craig. Democratic U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents the El Paso area that’s home to the detention center, also got involved.

Syed became hopeful, but she and the congresswomen were quickly moored in ICE’s kafkaesque bureaucracy.

In order to conduct oversight, the congresswomen needed Pedro-Francisco to fill out a form authorizing the visit and for Homeland Security to share information about her. But there is no way for Pedro-Francisco to fill out or mail the form in detention. There’s no commissary to buy envelopes and stamps, Syed said. Pedro-Francisco also can’t sign releases giving her attorneys access to her medical records.

An attorney planned to visit the detention center to get Pedro-Francisco’s signatures in person. Then came the measles outbreak, which has stopped anyone from visiting detainees in person, be they attorneys or members of Congress.

Craig said she reached out to a senior DHS official but received a bounceback citing the partial government shutdown. Congressional Democrats are refusing to support renewing funding for the agency without reforms to what they say are ICE’s unconstitutional tactics.

“It’s just stunning, but not surprising at all, that … even as a congressional office, we haven’t been able to get her the help that she needs and deserves,” Craig said.

Her office has received some information from DHS about Pedro-Francisco’s condition — that they’re giving her an antidepressant and birth control pills.

But that’s at odds with what Pedro-Francisco says she’s receiving. She said she went days without even Tylenol to dull the unbearable pain, and then about a week ago also started receiving a prescription, though she’s unsure what it’s called.

Pedro-Francisco said she was also recently examined by a man in the detention center who conducted an ultrasound. He told her she didn’t have anything and gave her two pills to go to the bathroom, but she doesn’t trust anybody in the facility. She’s requested the man’s name and records of her treatment in detention to show her lawyers but has not received either.

Inadequate medical care and poor record-keeping have been documented repeatedly at Camp East Montana, even by ICE’s own inspectors, who found 60 violations in 50 days.

Pedro-Francisco’s case remains at a standstill. The federal government filed an answer to her habeas corpus petition justifying her detention as an undocumented immigrant “seeking admission,” as if she were just apprehended at the border, and cited the recent 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

Now it’s up to a judge to decide, though when that will happen is unclear.

“I want to get out of here because I know that at home, where my family is, they can take care of me, and I can go to a doctor,” Pedro-Francisco said.

Madison McVan contributed translation. 

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Maryland Tuesday barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from re-detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying the Trump administration lacks plans to remove him from the United States.

“Respondents have done nothing to show that Abrego Garcia’s continued detention in ICE custody is consistent with due process,” District of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis wrote in her order. 

Tuesday’s order solidifies a temporary decision from Xinis last year that blocked immigration officials from re-detaining him. 

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran immigrant and longtime Maryland resident whose wrongful deportation to a brutal megaprison last year cast a national spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. 

His case has remained a focal point for the Trump administration, which brought Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. to face criminal charges lodged against him stemming from a traffic stop in Tennessee. 

Those charges were made while Abrego Garcia remained imprisoned in El Salvador, and after the Supreme Court found his deportation unlawful and said the Trump administration should facilitate his return. 

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to those charges of human smuggling and that case continues.

Since Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S., the Trump administration has tried to deport him to a third country, because he has deportation protections from his home country of El Salvador. An immigration judge in 2019 found he would likely face violence if returned there. 

Costa Rica has offered to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee and he has agreed to be removed there, but the Trump administration has tried to deport him to three African countries: Liberia, Eswatini and Uganda.

“Indeed, since Abrego Garcia secured his release from criminal custody in August 2025, Respondents have made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success,” Xinis wrote. 

Xinis added that because the Trump administration has not secured any travel documents for a third country of removal for Abrego Garcia, his detention would be unlawful. The Supreme Court deemed that immigrants cannot be held longer than six months in detention if the federal government is not actively making efforts to remove them. 

“From this, the Court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future,” she wrote.

Abrego Garcia remains in Maryland with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and their three children. 

Despite immigration detention numbers receding from recent highs and even as conservative judges are opting to release more detainees by rejecting President Donald Trump’s mass detention policy, tools for detainees to seek release or appeal cases are disappearing. 

A proposed federal rule will make it harder to appeal immigration cases nationally. And a federal appeals court ruling stops immigrants from requesting release on legal grounds in three Southern states if they entered the country illegally, no matter how long they’ve been here. 

As of late January, there were 70,766 people in immigration detention, up from about 40,000 at the start of the second Trump administration, with about 74% having no criminal convictions. (The number of detainees declined to 68,289 as of Feb. 7 amid increasing releases of immigration prisoners by federal judges, even many appointed by the Trump administration.)

This month’s court ruling in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which affects immigrants held in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, is a victory for a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy set last July. It requires detention without bond for many immigrants who arrived at the border without permission, even if they had been paroled with a court date. 

It comes as habeas petitions from people claiming illegal detention skyrocket — from a few dozen a week in early 2025 to thousands a week recently, according to a ProPublica report. The largest numbers of cases are in Texas, California, Minnesota, Florida and Georgia. 

Rekha Sharma-Crawford, an immigration attorney in Missouri and second vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said she believes hundreds of other federal judges disagree with the Feb. 6 appeals court order. 

‘Mandatory detention’

The ruling found that a landmark Clinton-era immigration law, called The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), “unambiguously provides for mandatory detention” for people who crossed the border illegally. 

A dissenting judge, Dana Douglas, wrote that drafters of that law ”would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people. For almost thirty years there was no sign anyone thought it had done so.” 

Sharma-Crawford said the ruling would likely be challenged, but that it may be too late for people who may give up under the stress of detention, and agree to deportation. 

“I have a client in detention who’s been here [in the United States] 30 years, no criminal history, and has a family,” Sharma-Crawford said in an interview. “In the past the individual would be eligible for a bond hearing and be able to fight their immigration case in due course. These people are not accustomed to being in jail.”  

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem praised the court decision on social media, saying “activist judges have ordered the release of alien after alien based on the false claim that DHS was breaking the law” and said the ruling proved the administration “was right all along.”

Another obstacle for detainees

Similarly, a new rule on the federal Board of Immigration Appeals makes it harder for immigrants to appeal cases like denial of asylum in immigration court.   

Open for comment until it takes effect March 9, the rule shrinks the deadline to appeal a decision to 10 days from 30 days, and the board will automatically deny a case unless a majority of the board votes to hear it.

Immigration attorney Raul Natera of Fort Worth, Texas, who posted a comment critical of the proposed rule, told Stateline it would be a “flat-out assault on due process,” because the Department of Justice could appoint board members who will not vote to hear appeals. Last year the Trump administration fired board members who had been appointed during the Biden administration. 

“Judges can make wrong decisions. If we do not ensure that those decisions can be reviewed, then there is no point to the judicial system in this country,” Natera said.

The Department of Justice argues in its proposed rule that denying appeals in most cases will speed up the process and clear a backlog of immigration cases.

Others disagree. The new rule will increase strain on courts if immigrants can no longer appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals and instead must file more lawsuits with appeals courts, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a lawyer and policy analyst at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute.

“The federal courts are already buckling under the weight of all these habeas petitions [alleging illegal detention],” Bush-Joseph said. “It’s a huge lift to be litigating all this.”

Sharma-Crawford called both measures a “numbers game” to get deportation numbers up before court challenges can make a difference. 

“All these things don’t happen quickly, and people will suffer while litigation is ongoing,” she said. “How much travesty and injustice is going to occur while the courts grapple with the legality of what the administration is doing?”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress on Thursday sought a ruling from a federal judge to block yet another Department of Homeland Security policy that required a notice for lawmakers to conduct oversight visits to immigration detention facilities.

The policy is the third from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on the subject, and it is nearly identical to the previous two. 

Noem’s policies put in place a new requirement that members of Congress must give DHS seven days notice before conducting an oversight visit at a facility that holds immigrants, despite a 2019 appropriations law that allows for unannounced visits by lawmakers. 

On Feb. 2, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb blocked a seven-day notification policy ordered by Noem one day after the deadly shooting of Renee Good by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. 

On the same day as Cobb’s ruling, Noem issued a nearly identical policy, after Democrats said they would refuse to approve new DHS funding unless changes in enforcement tactics were made following a second deadly shooting of Alex Pretti by two Customs and Border Protection officers.

With disagreement between both parties, and Thursday’s failed vote to move forward on funding the Homeland Security bill for fiscal year 2026, the agency will be shut down beginning early Saturday. 

However, even if DHS is shut down, Immigration and Customs Enforcement still has $75 billion in funding due to the tax cuts and spending package signed into law last year.

Agency shutting down

Department of Justice attorneys on Thursday argued because DHS will be shut down, the appropriations law will expire by the end of the week and therefore the unannounced oversight provision for members of Congress will no longer be in effect.

An attorney for the members of Congress, Christine L. Coogle, rejected that argument and said just because the funds expire does not mean the law, which is a rider in the Homeland Security funding bill, does as well. 

“The law itself does not expire,” she said. “And so the oversight rider remains on the books.” 

Cobb said she would extend her temporary restraining order until March 2, or until she rules, whichever comes first.

Visits denied

Under a 2019 appropriations law, any member of Congress can carry out an unannounced visit to a federal facility that holds immigrants, referred to as Section 527. But in June, multiple Democrats were denied visits to ICE facilities, so they sued. 

“What we’re really seeking here is a return to the status quo,” Coogle said in court Thursday. 

In December, Cobb granted the request to stay Noem’s policy, finding it violated the 2019 law. 

But in the second policy Noem issued on Jan. 8, she argued because the ICE facilities are using funds through the Republican spending and tax cuts law, known as the “One, Big Beautiful Bill,” and not the DHS appropriations bill, those facilities are therefore exempt from unannounced oversight visits by members of Congress. 

Cobb earlier this month, rejected that argument from the Trump administration and temporarily blocked the policy for the plaintiffs in the case. 

The House Democrats who sued include Joe Neguse of Colorado, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Kelly Morrison of Minnesota, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.

A demonstrator waves a red cloth as hundreds gather after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good through her car window Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026 near Portland Avenue and 34th Street. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Despite the high-profile U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in Minnesota, ICE arrests were down slightly in January compared to December, according to new data. 

Immigrant detention nationwide also reached a new high in January, and a growing percentage — nearly three-quarters — of people in detention have no criminal convictions.

ICE arrested 36,579 people in  January compared with December (37,842); the numbers haven’t changed much since October (36,621), according to new estimates from a Syracuse University professor.

The number of people in immigration detention reached 70,766 as of Jan. 24, a new high, according to a different report by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, also at Syracuse University.  

The number in detention has gone up steadily from about 40,000 at the start of the second Trump administration, and the latest number is the largest since the organization, known as TRAC, began tracking immigrant detention in 2019. 

Of those detainees 74.2%, or 52,504, had no criminal convictions, up from 70.4% in June.  

“Since the summer, nearly all of the growth in ICE detention has come from people without criminal convictions or charges — an area of tremendous sustained growth that contradicts the Trump administration’s narrative that they are focused on the worst of the worst,” Austin Kocher, a research assistant professor at Syracuse University who researches immigration enforcement, wrote in a substack posting. 

Kocher is a former researcher for TRAC but is no longer associated with the organization and created estimates of monthly arrests based on detention check-ins. 

Detention facilities in Texas had the largest number of detainees, 18,684, followed by Louisiana (8,207), California (6,422), Florida (5,187) and Georgia (4,178) as of Jan. 24. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Most people taken into custody by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not have a criminal conviction, recent reports show.

PolitiFact reported Jan. 23 that as of Jan. 7, 74% of immigrants being held in detention did not have a criminal conviction.

The libertarian Cato Institute, saying it received leaked ICE data, reported in September that over the previous year, 73% taken into ICE custody had no criminal conviction; 8% had a violent or property conviction.

In late September, the number of people in immigration detention who had no criminal record outnumbered those convicted of crimes, The Guardian reported, citing ICE data.

ICE data for fiscal 2026, through Nov. 15, showed 72% of booked detainees did not have a criminal conviction.

Under 30% of people arrested in crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and across Massachusetts had a criminal conviction, The New York Times reported in December.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• PolitiFact: Do 70% of immigrant detainees have criminal convictions or charges? Fact-checking Kristi Noem
• Cato Institute: 5% of People Detained By ICE Have Violent Convictions, 73% No Convictions
• The Guardian: Immigrants with no criminal record now largest group in Ice detention
• Cato Institute: FY2026 YTD ICE Book-ins
• New York Times: Most Immigrants Arrested in City Crackdowns Have No Criminal Record
• Stateline: An ever-larger share of ICE’s arrested immigrants have no criminal record

Do most people arrested by ICE have a criminal conviction? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.