Pregnancy, suicide attempts, frostbite: Records detail ICE medical claims before payment system collapsed

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security’s system for paying for detainee medical care has collapsed, records show, leaving a backlog of unpaid claims likely costing millions of dollars.With a new payment system still not in place, advocates for immigrant detainees fear some are going without necessary treatment as medical providers near a year without compensation.Newly released federal records reveal what that treatment could be for, detailing more than 233,000 claims for off-site medical and dental care between January and early October of 2025.

The claims, for which Homeland Security spent $96 million, show detainees were treated for a wide variety of conditions, including strokes, pregnancy, suicide attempts and frostbite.For years, Homeland Security relied on a unit of the Department of Veterans Affairs, its financial services center, to process reimbursement claims for detainee medical care.

But since that arrangement abruptly ended Oct.3, the company hired to create a new payment processing system has yet to start reimbursing the medical clinics, dental practices and pharmacies that treat detained patients.

The documents were released by the VA to the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act and shared exclusively with The Times.They paint the clearest picture yet of the off-site medical care received by immigrants in the custody of the federal government before the payment system fractured.

California California enacted a law during the first Trump administration requiring state oversight of immigrant detention facilities.This is the fifth report released by the California Department of Justice since 2019.The old system used by Homeland Security was scrapped after critics questioned why the VA was processing paperwork for a different fe...