A man with leukemia went two months without his cancer treatments at Delaney Hall. A pregnant woman was denied prenatal care for a month while suffering severe stomach pains. A woman with a throat tumor that obstructed her breathing grew so ill she could no longer speak — and was denied extra pillows while she struggled to breathe. A man with two prior heart attacks waited 11 hours after chest pains before staff called an ambulance. A gay asylum seeker from Ghana nearly went permanently blind while staff told him they were "waiting for ICE to approve" a specialist visit — for five months.

These are not isolated cases. Sixty emergency lawsuits filed between October 2025 and May 2026 document a pattern of systematic medical neglect at Delaney Hall, the largest ICE detention center in the New York area, operated by private prison company GEO Group under a $1 billion federal contract.

Detainees recovering from strokes, open heart surgery, kidney transplants, and colon removal surgery reported not receiving necessary medications. Epilepsy patients went without seizure medication for over a week — increasing the risk of fatal seizures every day. Gastrointestinal bleeding was treated with Tylenol. A man who arrived healthy spent nearly a year at Delaney Hall and now faces "high risk of morbidity and mortality" according to doctors who reviewed his records.

"It's like hell to me now," one detainee told reporters.

The Department of Homeland Security has broad legal authority to release medically vulnerable detainees. It is choosing not to use it — forcing sick people to file federal lawsuits just to access basic care.

We're calling on ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to immediately release all medically vulnerable detainees at Delaney Hall — those with cancer, heart conditions, pregnancy complications, seizure disorders, and other serious medical needs — before another person dies in their custody.