The Trump administration has closed the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, an independent watchdog that investigated allegations of abuse inside immigration detention centers, even as officers' use of force against detainees has surged to unprecedented levels.
The office, which operated outside the Department of Homeland Security, reviewed complaints about civil rights abuses, excessive force, and other misconduct involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. An internal email seen by HuffPost attributed the closure to a lack of funding in Homeland Security appropriations bills that ended the partial government shutdown, though the bill's text does not require the office to close. The office is mandated by law.
A DHS spokesperson told The Independent: "DHS did not shutdown the Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman — Congress did. The House passed the DHS appropriations bill without objection, and it was signed into law last week." The office's public-facing website, which instructed families and attorneys on how to file complaints, is now offline. An archived version remains online but contains "outdated information that may not reflect current policy or programs."
Surge in use of force
The closure comes amid more than 780 instances of ICE officers and detention staff using physical force or chemical agents against immigrant detainees since Trump returned to the White House — a 37 percent increase from the previous year. The number of detainees subjected to force spiked to 1,330 people, a 54 percent rise from the prior year under President Joe Biden, according to an analysis from The Washington Post.
These allegations follow a dramatic shift in immigration enforcement under Trump, whose administration is detaining nearly 70,000 people in ICE detention centers at any given time. Detention figures hit a record 73,000 earlier this year as the president deploys federal law enforcement to support mass deportation efforts. More than 30 people died in ICE detention in 2025, the deadliest year in over two decades, and at least 18 have died so far in 2026.
Staff reductions
Last year, the Trump administration abruptly notified hundreds of watchdog employees overseeing DHS that they were being stripped of their jobs. The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, along with the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, were to be reduced to their "absolutely irreducible minimum." By December, the ombudsman's office had only three full-time employees, two detailees, and no contractors — a total of five people, a 96 percent staff reduction, according to the Washington Office on Latin America.
Adam Isaacson of the Washington Office on Latin America told HuffPost that the closure "fits in with a larger strategy here, of trying to get people to give up on their immigration cases — and give up on their asylum cases — by holding out the threat of detention and making sure that that detention will be in the most miserable conditions possible. If you're trying to make detention as miserable as possible — because you believe, in some twisted way, that that's a deterrent — then you're going to do what you can to get rid of the ombudsman's office, because that would have been a source of friction for you."
Lawsuits allege inhumane conditions
Lawsuits across the country allege brutal conditions inside ICE detention centers, which the agency says are designed to be "non-punitive" facilities. Yet many rely on the same tools and tactics as prisons and jails holding people with criminal records. Lawsuits also allege unsanitary cells, lack of access to legal counsel, measles outbreaks in at least two facilities, and hospitalizations and alleged medical mistreatment of children inside a camp holding immigrant families.
Homeland Security officials have defended the level of care provided to detained immigrants while claiming that "detention is a choice" as officials urge immigrants to "self-deport." In a statement marking Trump's first year back in office, DHS claimed 2.2 million "self-deportations" and more than 675,000 deportations since January 20, 2025.
Expansion plans
ICE recently told Congress that the agency plans to hold at least 99,000 people on any given day in ICE detention centers in fiscal years 2026 and 2027. Expanding detention space to hold nearly 100,000 people daily is "critical" to meeting ICE's goal of arresting and removing 1 million people per year, DHS told lawmakers. The increase will prevent "bottlenecks in the removal lifecycle," the agency wrote, adding: "Further increases in allocations for ICE detention bedspace will drive average daily population figures higher, though this increase may be gradual as the acquisition and construction of new facilities, and expansion and retrofitting of existing facilities takes time."
