Mississippi’s only immigrant detention center received its worst-ever inspection report—and still passed

Previously unreported federal inspection found serious failures in how facility reviewed uses of force, raising new questions about oversight of expanding detention system

Mississippi’s only dedicated immigrant detention facility received its worst inspection report since operations began in 2019, with inspectors finding 23 use-of-force violations after the CoreCivic-owned facility failed to investigate whether detainees were subject to excessive pressure on their throats, heads and chests, or whether video evidence contained unexplained gaps or missing sequences.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspectors noted that facility staff failed to follow the detailed procedures contained in the Performance-Based National Detention Standards in four of the 15 use-of-force incidents selected for review, according to the previously unreported inspection released in June 2026 by ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight.

The findings expose a breakdown in the safeguards designed to determine what happens when force is used against people in federal immigration custody, which includes many who have never been convicted of a crime. They come as ICE rapidly expands a detention system now holding tens of thousands of people. Detainee deaths have risen sharply to two-decade highs amid the dismantling of one of the government’s principal independent detention watchdogs. Despite receiving 26 violations overall, Adams County received a passing grade.

“We take seriously our obligation to adhere to all applicable federal detention standards in our U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)-contracted facilities, including Adams County Correctional Center (ACCC),” Ryan Gustin, CoreCivic’s senior director of public affairs, told The Mississippi Independent in an email. “An onsite ICE Detention Standards Compliance Officer ensures we follow their strict standards and policies. All our facilities are subject to robust oversight and accountability measures. Our government partners all require regular review and audit processes.”

The inspection, which was conducted from May 7 to May 9, 2026, also found instances in which supervisors failed to check whether inmates had been placed in the correct housing units and found lengthy delays in ICE’s response to detainees. It was also discovered that CoreCivic staff had failed to conduct any inventory of some detainees’ baggage and non-valuable belongings.

The result represented a dramatic reversal from the previous year. Adams County had four deficiencies in its 2025 inspection and received a “Superior” rating.

The inspection report does not explain why staff failed to follow procedures in some use-of-force incidents but not others, or what happened during any of the unexplained events. The Performance-Based National Detention Standards note in precise detail when staff can resort to use-of-force, which is defined as a last resort after efforts to gain voluntary cooperation have failed. It can involve physical restraint, planned cell extractions, use of chemical agents and other efforts to gain control of a detainee.

According to the standards, each incident should be documented, investigated and reported within two days to senior ICE staff, while all incidents are to be recorded and reviewed for a range of compliance issues.

Internal ICE records obtained by The Washington Post documented at least 780 use-of-force incidents at 98 immigration detention facilities during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, up 37 percent from the previous year. More than 1,300 people were involved, a 54 percent increase from the year before. The incidents are summarized in daily ICE emails, meaning private facility employees and ICE staff are well-versed in procedures after use-of-force incidents. The New York Times also reported on substandard healthcare and detainee deaths.

ICE did not respond to questions about the Adams County inspection report or what happened during the four incidents it reviewed.

CoreCivic’s Gustin told The Mississippi Independent that the company is committed to treating detainees with care and respect.

“We have a detailed Human Rights Policy that clearly outlines our commitments regarding resident rights and treatment, including legal rights, safety and security, healthcare, visitation and standards of living,” Gustin said in his email to The Mississippi Independent.

Growing problems

The inspection deficiencies emerged amid growing scrutiny of the nation’s problematic immigrant detention system, which has included living conditions described as “cruel and inhumane” and a “graveyard for living people.”

Medical neglect has become a particular concern. In June, DHS’s Office of the Inspector General agreed to review the high number of detainee deaths since 2021 to the end of March 2026.

Two men died at Adams County in the 17 months between inspections. An Iranian man died in March 2026 from complications related to heart disease. The death of Delvin Francisco Rodriguez in December 2025 is particularly controversial. He was found unresponsive in his cell after an alleged attempted suicide by hanging, according to an ICE detainee death report. His death came about 10 days before he was due to be deported back to Nicaragua. He had been arrested by ICE for the offense of failure to appear for careless driving and driving without a license.

Reporting by Mississippi Today noted that nurses at the Merit Health hospital in Natchez told an immigration advocate that Francisco Rodriguez’s injuries were not consistent with ICE’s explanation that he hanged himself with a sheet and that he had an injury on his forehead that likely did not result from a suicide attempt.

ICE did not respond to questions about whether Rodriguez was among the four use-of-force incidents mentioned in the inspection report.

Previous investigations by The Mississippi Independent have documented an alleged years-long taxi extortion scheme run by a senior CoreCivic employee and her husband. The scheme involved directing detainees about to be released to a taxi service run by the husband, who charged hundreds of dollars per person for rides from Adams County to transportation hubs in Louisiana and Mississippi. One juvenile detainee said that he was threatened with being sent back into detention if he did not pay the $300 fare. Two adult detainees were also charged $300 each.

Failing the inspections is almost unheard of. Of 241 inspections reviewed by the Government Accountability Office between fiscal years 2022 and 2024, 239 resulted in ratings of acceptable or better. Only two failed. Other Department of Homeland Security watchdogs, using different inspection methods and often examining targeted concerns, found violations far more frequently.

Any facility that fails two consecutive inspections has its contract payments withheld, per federal law. That has never happened.

The difference between the oversight standards has fueled longstanding criticism that ICE’s inspection regime can document serious deficiencies without meaningfully observing the actual conditions detainees experience.

“Even with the level of medical neglect that is happening in the detention centers, the food—everything is so bad, and there is such a level of apathy in how the system treats people,” Francis Kelley, the Shreveport coordinator for the Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, or LA-AID, told The Mississippi Independent.

The end of detention oversight

The question of who watches over ICE has become more consequential as the detention system has rapidly expanded and deaths have become more frequent. ICE’s detained population increased 71 percent between Trump’s inauguration and April 2026, according to the GAO. Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights counted 52 deaths during the administration’s first 500 days and found that the mortality rate had more than doubled since the beginning of Trump’s second term.

As the system becomes more chaotic and unwieldy, some of the independent offices designed to scrutinize detention conditions have either disappeared or been scaled back considerably. The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, created by Congress in 2019 as a watchdog independent of ICE, was dissolved by DHS in March 2025. The agency blamed the government shutdown for its demise. DHS said at the time that the OIDO “obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles.”

OIDO’s statutory duties included conducting unannounced inspections, investigating concerns about detention conditions and examining violations of facility contracts. The OIG, another independent source of detention oversight, remains in operation, but reports that a lapse in appropriations affected roughly 85 percent of its inspections and could delay its routine reporting moving forward.

More than 140 staff at OIDO were placed on administrative leave in early 2025. Human rights groups have since sued DHS over the office’s closure, while U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey introduced an amendment this June that would reopen the office and use its inspection findings to enforce current laws that withhold contract payment when OIDO finds potential misconduct, use of excessive force or violations of detention standards.

Allison Posner, the former director of external relations for OIDO between 2021 and 2025, told Mother Jones in a May 2026 interview that the ombudsman office staff had been quickly and effectively solving detainee issues during weekly or fortnightly visits to facilities.

“We were getting to a place where we were doing it well,” Posner said, “but now there’s no one doing it at all, and that’s the part that’s particularly heartbreaking.”

With Congress’s oversight system shelved for now and the OIG conducting far fewer detention inspections, the Office of Detention Oversight has no agency or office to answer to.

The vacuum is already being felt. Some detention facilities haven’t been inspected in more than a year. The lack of oversight can have profound consequences for detainees, including those who have never been convicted of a crime but were simply caught up in the ICE net to fulfill arbitrary deportation quotas.

The importance of that oversight is best explained by what happened at CoreCivic’s Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico. ICE inspectors identified 21 deficiencies across eight detention standards in late 2021 but still awarded the facility a “Superior” rating.

Months later, OIG inspectors arrived unannounced and found severe staffing shortages, inadequate medical staffing, security failures and widespread plumbing and sanitation problems. The facility was operating with just 54 percent of its required staff, and more than half of detainee cells faced plumbing problems.

The findings were serious enough that in March 2022 the OIG recommended that ICE immediately remove every detainee unless conditions were rapidly corrected.

ICE did not close Torrance.

A later inspection by OIDO identified even more problems and ultimately issued eight recommendations to ICE and CoreCivic. Huge chunks of the report were redacted. Torrance remains in federal use.

At Adams County, the questions left unanswered are the ones the detention standards were designed to resolve: How much force was used, whether detainees were already subdued and whether the video record was complete, among many other issues stemming from use-of-force incidents.

Even with independent oversight flailing against the Trump administration’s eagerness to arrest, detain and deport as many immigrants as possible, ICE’s own inspectors documented that standards at Adams County had hit rock bottom.

It was still acceptable.

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Image: Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations worksite enforcement operation in Canton, Mississippi (Via ICE)