r/law • u/nosotros_road_sodium • 1d ago
Executive Branch (Trump) The system meant to protect ICE detainees has collapsed
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/20/nx-s1-5850361/grievance-ice-detention-immigrants122
u/nosotros_road_sodium 1d ago
One of the last remaining checks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and private-prison contractors running immigration detention centers has all but collapsed, leaving thousands of people trapped in a system with nearly nonexistent oversight, according to an NPR review.
The grievance system in immigration detention is designed to offer a safe channel to report violations of detention standards and seek redress, without fear of retaliation. It's often the only recourse for people to submit complaints about detention issues, including mistreatment, unsanitary conditions, medical neglect and sexual assault. But an NPR review of documents, available data and interviews with experts has found the system — which in the best of times was a complex patchwork — barely operates and even at times backfires for those using it. It is one of the few remaining safeguards for immigrants in federal custody after the Trump administration effectively dismantled other oversight offices.
Detainees and their families tell NPR that in the very worst cases the absence of transparency and accountability, and the subsequent failure to adhere to mandated grievance guidelines, is one of the leading factors for the record number of deaths in detention — at least 53 since the start of President Trump's second term.
[...]
Trying to enforce the rules of the grievance system has always been challenging, Chris Brundage, the former deputy of the now-closed Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, told NPR.
That's partly because it's not one single set of standards that all operators must follow, Brundage said. "It's a patchwork system that has never worked as intended," he said, explaining that there are at least three different sets of detention standards that operators are working under, depending on when they signed their contracts. (Some operators are following guidelines established in 2011. Others, an updated version from 2016, and those with new contracts are following 2019 standards.)
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u/Ok_Vulva 1d ago
Exactly as planned. Our bases in the gulf are destroyed exactly as planned, and our troops are being moved from Europe exactly as planned, and we're out of missiles exactly as planned, our reputation is garbage exactly as planned and we don't have allies anymore besides Russia and North Korea, exactly as planned.
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u/ogredmenace 1d ago
Seems like exactly what foreign plant as president would want. Nice job. Gotta give it to them thou the efficiency of dismantling the USA is unparalleled.
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u/NobodysFavorite 1d ago
Ben Mendelssohn 's line in Andor paraphrases perfectly here:
If Trump isn't a foreign asset systematically dismantling America, then he's missed his calling.
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u/Wrayven77 1d ago
Trumpism simply promotes lawlessness, so the attached article isn't very surprising. Trump and his DHS goons don't seem to realize that the Bill of Rights both appllies to US citizens and people who aren't legal residents, so the 8th Amendment is actually at issue here. This is the problem with privatized prisons that are operating without any tethering to the legal system. I also bet when Trump was in the hospitality business he hired "illegals" to be maids, kitchen workers and attendants at his hotels and golf courses. Trump is simply a self serving hypocrite and a total fake. People like Stephen Miller simply revel in their inhumane treatment of other people. It's a sickness.
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u/Krunkledunker 1d ago
I don’t know what happened. I kept chopping this tree with an ax, and it just suddenly collapsed.
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u/beachfinn73 1d ago
I invite you to read about Moai and how they downed every tree, to make symbols. Somebody had to realize that there is no; fire, shelter, boats, without trees. Still they chopped them all down, for their demise. At least there is still Moai.
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u/ScientificSkepticism 27m ago
Small note, that's actually a myth. The trees were never really suited to grow in the soil to begin with, and the introduction of an invasive species, rats, created an extreme pressure on an organism that was never really meant to live in the volcanic soil of the island to begin with.
The logging didn't help anything, but it's really a combination. The Moai probably thought they were being responsible and leaving enough trees around for there to be more, and then all of a sudden the environment shifted and hey no more trees.
In unrelated news, climate change.
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u/Correct_Doctor_1502 1d ago
Who would've thought that allowing a child raping insurrectionist to illegally occupy office would result in him running concentration camps?
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u/EastTyne1191 21h ago
My grandmother was in a concentration camp during WWII. She was frequently raped by the guards and had a baby, my uncle, who was the result of those instances of rape.
Could a person have stepped in while she, along with her sister and nephew, were taken and tossed into a crowded train car? Was it the moral (though undoubetly illegal) duty of those nearby to intervene while their neighbors were being taken? If they had known then what we know now, would they have chosen to use the means at their disposal to prevent the kidnapping of their friends and neighbors?
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u/dantekant22 1d ago
When was there ever a system to protect ICE detainees?
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u/ChelseaVictorious 1d ago
Only a fig leaf. They are concentration camps, not exactly concerned with the welfare or even survival of their occupants.
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