ICE Refused to Give Detainees Medical Treatment After Gas Leak

Detainees at a Mississippi Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility reportedly got sick from a gas leak, complaining of headaches and other medical symptoms.

The Guardian reports that the Adams County Correctional Facility, which is run by the private prison contractor CoreCivic on behalf of ICE, also had a long power outage, leading to a loss of air conditioning for two days this week. This forced detainees to either roast inside cramped cells or spend hours outside in 100-degree temperatures without shade, one detainee told the publication through family members.

The high temperatures also raised tempers, with arguments and physical incidents increasing among the detainees in a facility that is understaffed, causing the publication’s source to fear for his own safety. The gas leak reportedly took place Saturday, and the source, who spoke to The Guardian anonymously, said detainees were evacuated “out into the afternoon heat for hours.”

“They were outside for hours. And when they came back in, it still smelled of gas. And then some of the men were getting headaches and symptoms of inhaled gas. They were never really told where the leak came from, how it was resolved, or was it fully resolved,” the source’s wife said. “Illness has been growing. So there are a lot of people getting sick, and they have begun putting people three to a cell that was designed for two.”

The power outage took place on Monday, and by Tuesday, electricity had only been partially restored for lighting and other operations. Air conditioning would not come on until late in the day Wednesday.

“When these things are happening, either they’re shut out outside without shade and air conditioning, and they’re not given any answers,” the detainee’s U.S. citizen wife told The Guardian. “Or a lot of the time the power was out they just had them locked in their cells, they didn’t get to leave for dinner or breakfast.”

The facility also attempted to prevent detainees from telling anyone outside of the facility about the poor conditions.

“They didn’t give them the tablet devices during that time because they didn’t want them notifying loved ones,” she said. “If they feel anyone’s organizing anything, they’ll send them to solitary.”

CoreCivic downplayed the conditions at Adams County in a statement to The Guardian, saying that the publication received “some bad information.”

“While several detainees thought they may have smelled something related to a natural gas leak, none of our staff members detected anything along these lines,” said CoreCivic’s senior director of public affairs Ryan Gustin. “Out of an abundance of caution, an on-call facility maintenance staff member came in to assess the facility for any possible gas leaks, and none were found.”

Gustin said that the power outage was due to a storm in the area, and that there were no disruptions to the air conditioning systems. He also claimed that no one at any time was refused medical treatment.

The Mississippi facility is one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country, holding more than 2,000 detainees on a 14-acre property as of March. At the time, only nine percent of detainees there had a criminal record. The poor conditions there are not unique, as poor hygiene and illness have been recorded at ICE facilities across the country, such as the Dilley family detention facility in Texas and Delaney Hall in New Jersey, which recently had its third detainee death.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents mocked a U.S. Army wife who was returned to the United States after being put on a deportation flight to her native Brazil.

Maisa Lopes Eliaser was mid-flight Wednesday with several other immigrants when agents received a call about her. She told the Associated Press that an ICE agent then asked her if she wanted to continue to Brazil or return to the U.S. Eliaser’s husband, Army Staff Sgt. Alexis Jaramillo, told the AP that they didn’t know who made the call, “but someone made the phone call, and then she came back.”

Other detainees were led off of the plane in Brazil, but Eliaser was allowed to stay on board to return to Louisiana. Agents then told her that thanks to videos and news reports about her case, she was “famous.”

Jaramillo, an aviation operations specialist who has served in the Army for more than 10 years, was forced to take leave from his duties training soldiers to care for his five-year-old stepson after she was detained last month at an immigration appointment. The government previously told the AP that Eliaser had been issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in April for overstaying a tourist visa.

Now Eliaser has an appointment Monday to reopen her case and green card application, and the couple is worried. Jaramillo, who is a U.S. citizen and married Eliaser in 2024, has been told there won’t be any more issues. But he and his wife “are really, really, really scared about it, but you know, we have to go.”

“I told the person who gave me the appointment, ‘Hey sir, don’t play with me, I’ve been through a lot,’” Jaramillo told the AP.

The Trump administration has disrespected the immigrant family members of U.S. military personnel, with ICE agents raiding a military base to arrest a newlywed soldier’s wife and staking out Marine Corps graduations to detain immigrants. While Democrats in Congress are investigating deportations of military personnel and their families, Eliaser was fortunate enough to be allowed to return to the U.S. Others have not been so lucky.

It’s been more than a month since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration linked Taylor Farms to the deadly cyclospora outbreak, and yet the agency is only just now sending investigators to visit the produce grower’s facilities.  

Investigators with the FDA finally arrived at Taylor Farms’s operation in Mexico to inspect facilities linked to the parasite that can cause explosive bowel movements, four U.S. officials told The Washington Post Friday. 

Donald Prater, the FDA’s acting deputy commissioner for food, said that there was extensive research required before the agency could launch an investigation into the growing conditions.

But food safety experts and some former top FDA officials criticized the agency for waiting so long after publicly linking the company’s shredded lettuce to a national outbreak that has sickened more than 13,000 people and caused two deaths. 

Barbara Kowalcyk, director of George Washington University’s Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security, told the Post that in-person work at the facility was necessary for prevention. 

“Ideally, as soon as [the FDA] traced it back to the source, they would be out there working with the facility and specifically working with Taylor Farms to do a root-cause analysis so that we can understand what happened,” Kowalcyk said. “That’s really what’s going to drive prevention going forward.”

On July 17, the FDA notified Taylor Farms that its shredded iceberg lettuce had tested positive for cyclospora. Taylor Farms falsely claimed that the FDA had later walked back its determination, but still promptly recalled all of the shredded iceberg lettuce that was grown and processed in central Mexico out of an “abundance of caution.” A sanitation inspection conducted by Mexican officials between July 18 and July 20 tested negative for cyclospora. The company’s website claims that its own testing of roughly 2,000 samples also tested negative for the parasite. 

Taylor Farms is the country’s largest supplier of fresh produce, and is also pro-Donald Trump. The company sells products to Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger, SYSCO, Aldi, Target, and Dollar General.

Before any of this, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly cut back on parasite monitoring. 

President Trump has hit the highest national disapproval rating on gas prices in recorded history, as 79 percent of Americans—and a whopping 52 percent of Republicans—feel negatively about how he’s handled skyrocketing gas prices. 

“No president has been hated more when it comes to gas prices,” CNN’s Harry Enten said during a Friday segment. “79 percent ... that is the highest disapproval rating for any president on record.”  Former Presidents George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, who each had their own struggles with gas prices, never eclipsed a 75 percent disapproval rating on the issue. 

“Donald Trump takes the cake as these $4-plus gas prices continue to give us pain at the pump. The American people are taking their anger out on the President of the United States,” Enten said.

The poll’s party line breakdown is even more devastating, as 52 percent of Republicans disapproving may put Trump-backed candidates at risk in their November elections as they have to answer for his decisions—especially in swing states. 96 percent of Democrats disapproved, along with 85 percent of independents. 

These are startling numbers that Trump can’t convincingly blame on decisions Biden made three years ago. Gas prices are high—and will continue to be high—because Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started bombing Iran and Lebanon, and Iran closed the crucial Strait of Hormuz in response. That’s why your gas is $4 for the third time this year—something else that has never happened before.

President Donald Trump denied reports Friday of horrific conditions onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln—and suggested that the U.S. servicemembers should stay at sea for even longer.  

Trump offered a shockingly callous response while taking a question about the aircraft carrier that’s been deployed since November. 

“Family members of U.S. servicemembers are concerned about conditions onboard the USS Lincoln—” one reporter said. 

“Well no—that ship is moving—no, they’re not,” Trump interjected. “That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it’s being replaced with another very similar ship.”

Asked whether he believed that the servicemembers had been deployed for “too long,” Trump had a similarly heartless reply.

“No, no, no. Not nearly long enough,” Trump said.

Family of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have detailed the carrier’s multiple issues, including plumbing disasters, disruptions with the delivery of mail, and shortages of food, water, and other supplies. These issues have placed an immense strain on the mental health and wellbeing of sailors on board the ship. It’s gotten so bad that multiple sailors have tried to jump overboard. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the USS George Washington aircraft carrier will soon be deployed to the Persian Gulf from Japan to replace the Abraham Lincoln, part of a previously scheduled rotation plan. But the Lincoln has already been deployed for 250 days and gone a record 200 days without a port call.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth previously claimed that reports about the state of affairs aboard the Lincoln had “misrepresented” the situation. 

Clearly, the president couldn’t care less about U.S. servicemembers or their families.