Inside ICE Detention: Due Process Under Strain

In the past eight months, the United States’ immigration enforcement system has undergone a dramatic expansion. Human rights investigators found that the average daily population of people held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody grew from about 37,500 per day in 2024 to more than 56,000 by June 20, 2025, a 40 percent increase and the highest detention population in U.S. history. Nearly 72 percent of those detainees had no criminal history. As detention numbers ballooned, conditions deteriorated; at three Florida facilities—Krome, Broward Transitional Center, and the Miami Federal Detention Center—detainees described being shackled for hours on buses without food or water, sleeping on cold concrete floors under fluorescent lights, and being denied basic hygiene and medical care. Human Rights Watch reported that Krome’s population surged to three times its operational capacity in March 2025, and detainees were transferred or placed in solitary confinement without notice, disrupting legal representation.

Blocking counsel and other due‑process violations

Advocates say the right to a fair hearing—guaranteed under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments—is increasingly hollow inside federal detention centers. In May 2025, civil rights groups sent letters to the Bureau of Prisons and ICE documenting systemic failures at facilities in Kansas and Miami, where people were subjected to 72‑hour lockdowns, unsanitary conditions, medical neglect, and severe barriers to communicating with attorneys or receiving legal mail (aclu.org). “Detaining someone and undermining their due process by blocking access to counsel is a clear and unequivocal violation of the Sixth Amendment,” noted Michael Sharma‑Crawford, chair of the Kansas and Missouri chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (aclu.org). At Miami’s Federal Detention Center, legal service providers reported that detained immigrants could not access phones or legal documents, effectively preventing them from preparing asylum applications or contesting deportation orders.

A court backlog measured in millions

The federal immigration court system, responsible for adjudicating removal cases, remains overwhelmed. Data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) showed that by March 20, 2025, the court backlog still stood at 3.69 million cases, even after dropping slightly from the late 2024 levels. The average wait for a hearing had climbed to 636 days (tracreports.org). Only about 0.77 percent of people in the backlog were detained—about 28,216 individuals—yet decisions are slow; some courts, including Miami, New York and Orlando, each have more than 200,000 cases pending (tracreports.org). In many jurisdictions, fewer than a quarter of immigrants have legal representation; TRAC’s February 2025 data show that just 21.2 percent of immigrants had attorneys when removal orders were issued (tracreports.org). These figures translate into years of uncertainty: a separate analysis based on early 2024 data found nationwide wait times averaging 1,424 days—nearly four years—and in cities like New York, they can stretch into the next decade (docketwise.com).

Human stories highlight the stakes

The abstract statistics mask individual tragedies. On Aug. 20, 2025, a federal judge in Oregon weighed whether to release a Guatemalan farmworker, identified as L‑J‑P‑L, who had been deported twice before but was awaiting an asylum hearing set for November 2026 (opb.org). ICE agents arrested him during a raid on farmworkers, even though he had complied with previous release conditions (opb.org). At a hearing, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut questioned whether federal officials could simply “take [someone] into custody without any due process if we want to,” underscoring the legal stakes (opb.org). His attorneys argued that deporting him before his scheduled hearing would violate his right to contest removal and remain free on bond (opb.org). Such cases are not isolated; in Florida, Human Rights Watch documented how a lawful permanent resident named Andrea was jailed after calling the police during a domestic dispute. Even after a judge ordered her released on bond, local officials held her for ICE under an immigration detainer, then transferred her in shackles to a male-only facility and later across the country; she endured days without beds, showers, or phone access (hrw.org).

Militarized detention sites and shrinking oversight

Civil liberties advocates also warn that new detention projects threaten to further erode transparency and access to counsel. In August 2025 the Trump administration opened an immigration detention camp at Fort Bliss, a U.S. military base in Texas, where tents will hold up to 5,000 people (aclu.org). Built behind the walls of a military installation, the facility is designed to “militarize immigration enforcement, reduce transparency, and fast‑track deportations with minimal accountability,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The remote location—subject to 100‑degree heat and sandstorms—creates steep barriers to legal counsel and medical care, isolating detainees and pressuring them to abandon their cases (aclu.org). Congress recently allocated $45 billion for detention in a larger immigration‑enforcement package, more than half the budget of the entire federal prison system.

Extraordinary deportations under the Alien Enemies Act

The erosion of due process has reached beyond detention conditions. In March 2025, the administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel nearly 300 people to El Salvador, including 238 Venezuelans who had pending immigration court hearings and were not subject to final removal orders (americanimmigrationcouncil.org). The people were flown out without notice or a chance to object; most were held incommunicado in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, where guards shaved their heads, stripped them and beat them (americanimmigrationcouncil.org). Evidence later showed that ICE’s determination that the men were gang members relied on subjective interpretations of tattoos and social‑media posts (americanimmigrationcouncil.org). When the Supreme Court ordered the government to provide basic due process and allow those targeted under the Alien Enemies Act an opportunity to refute the allegations, the administration initially attempted to proceed anyway until the Court intervened a second time (americanimmigrationcouncil.org). Critics say the episode demonstrates a willingness to sidestep the already limited due‑process protections afforded to non‑citizens.

Calls for reform

Immigrant‑rights attorneys argue that the United States can uphold the rule of law while managing immigration. They urge Congress and the White House to provide community‑based alternatives to detention, hire more immigration judges, restore funding for legal‑orientation programs and repeal statutory provisions mandating detention. Human Rights Watch and other advocates call for an end to the use of solitary confinement, improved medical care, and codification of policies limiting enforcement actions in sensitive locations. The ACLU’s letter on conditions at FCI Leavenworth and FDC‑Miami asks ICE to end the use of federal prisons for civil immigration detention and ensure timely access to phones, mail and attorneys. At a local level, officials in El Paso have passed resolutions demanding transparency for the Fort Bliss camp, and federal judges around the country are increasingly scrutinizing detentions that cut off non‑citizens from the courts. Whether such measures will slow the march toward a more militarized and less accountable immigration system remains to be seen.