Demand Progress

Investigate and shut down abusive ICE prisons!

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    Investigate and shut down abusive ICE prisons!

    Petition to Congress:
    We urge you to do everything in your power to investigate and shut down vile, inhumane immigrant detention centers, including “Alligator Alcatraz.”

    Senator Jon Ossoff compiled a report documenting hundreds of human rights abuses at ICE prisons, including pregnant women sleeping on floors in overcrowded intake cells and children denied medical attention.1

    In response, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security brushed off the accusations, simply saying, “Any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false.”2 It’s an absurd statement after another person died in ICE custody last week in Pennsylvania.3

    Lawmakers have also spoken out about the horrific conditions at the prison Trump has called “Alligator Alcatraz” — excessive heat, insufficient food, and unlivable sanitation conditions with 30+ people in a cage with 3 toilets, some inoperable, with drinking spigots connected to toilet tanks. Congress must investigate these abusive ICE prisons!

    Sign the petition: Investigate Trump’s ICE prisons! End the horrible, inhumane treatment of people in immigrant detention.

    After visiting “Alligator Alcatraz,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz called it an “internment camp.”4 Rep. Maxwell Frost said, “What I saw made my heart sink.”5 And now ICE is using its massive infusion of funding from Congress to build even more of these slapdash torture centers.6

    The “egregious and unconstitutional conditions” at the Pennsylvania ICE detention center where a man died by suicide last week had already been documented in an ACLU lawsuit.7 It’s the largest ICE prison in the northeast.8

    Our leaders must fight back against the White House’s vicious detention centers NOW.

    Sign the petition: Investigate ICE prisons now! Protect immigrants from brutal ICE abuses.

    Sources:

    1. NBC News, "Hundreds of alleged human rights abuses in immigrant detention, report finds,” August 5, 2025.
    2. Ibid.
    3. The Intercept, “Chinese ICE Detainee Dies by Suicide at Pennsylvania Detention Center,” August 7, 2025.
    4. USA Today, "'Help me!' Democrats decry 'vile' conditions at 'Alligator Alcatraz' immigrant prison,” July 14, 2025.
    5. Ibid.
    6. The Wall Street Journal, “Newly Flush With Cash, ICE Races to Build Migrant Tent Camps,” July 19, 2025.
    7. The Intercept, “Chinese ICE Detainee Dies by Suicide at Pennsylvania Detention Center,” August 7, 2025.
    8. Ibid.
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