He depended on a prescription to keep diabetes in check. Records from ICE detention show how his health fell apart

In his 23rd request for medical attention, dated June 2025, the man from Mexico wrote, “It’s been three days since I received my insulin… and I’ve been feeling really bad.” 

When he sent a formal request for insulin the next day, through the facility’s tablet messaging system, he received the following response:  “You have been receiving your insulin each day. We are not out.”

The man, who is in his 50’s, was held at the Otay Mesa ICE detention center for 17 months while he endured type 2 diabetes. 

After first arriving more than 40 years ago, he was living near San Diego when he was arrested by ICE agents outside his home in December 2024. 

The man says his medication regimen changed when he arrived at the detention center, as well as his diet. His blood sugar swung between dramatic highs and lows, setting in motion a domino effect of health issues. 

In interviews over recent months, the man and another detainee with diabetes made repeated claims of poor medical care. They say the lapses in care jeopardized their long-term health and put their lives at immediate risk. 

The man from Mexico, who asked not to use his name because he fears retaliation from immigration agents, also provided Times of San Diego with hundreds of pages of medical documents and correspondence from his time in detention, including allegations of poor care that predate the Trump administration’s current crackdown. 

His medical file and other records raise broader questions about medical care at Otay Mesa, which is run by a private prison contractor called CoreCivic.

Medical board complaints show that as of this spring, out of a handful of doctors on staff at the site, one who treated the Mexican man had a decades-long history of disciplinary issues with the state medical board. He subsequently agreed to surrender his medical license after failing to comply with board-ordered mental and physical examinations. 

Ambulance calls from the detention center in 2025 denote a variety of medical emergencies, like “seizures,” “head injury,” “GI bleed,” and “potential hanging.” 

Healthcare experts working with the California Department of Justice visited the detention center in October 2025 and found multiple deficiencies, including chronic lapses in continuity of care. In a report released last month, state investigators said they reviewed records pertaining to a detainee with seizures who was never referred to a neurologist, an inmate with blood in the urine which was never checked, and a case of tuberculosis which was not adequately handled, putting the patient and others in the facility at risk. 

State investigators also found the detention center suffered from poor medical assessment and record-keeping that led to detainees not receiving needed medications for days or weeks — the same kinds of complaints repeatedly documented in the Mexican man’s medical file.

Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego. (Photo by Adrian Childress/Times of San Diego)

Officials at Otay Mesa refused to allow public inspection by San Diego County health officials, despite laws intended to give them access to immigration detention sites. The county filed suit seeking to preserve its right to do health inspections, and a judge ordered ICE and CireCivic to comply.

Federal immigration officials said detainees receive the highest quality medical care. “It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” a representative of the Department of Homeland Security wrote in response to questions from Times of San Diego. “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”

A representative of CoreCivic told Times of San Diego that the company would not comment on the claims of individual detainees. The company also said it disputed many of the claims in the state Department of Justice investigation, saying they were based on “secondhand reports rather than independently verified observations.” 

“CoreCivic is committed to providing access to high-quality medical and mental health care for all residents, including those with diabetes,” the company said in a statement. CoreCivic did not answer specific questions about medical staff qualification requirements, how staff treat patients or how they provide prescription medications.

Mistreatment of diabetes has been documented inside ICE detention facilities nationwide, with repeated claims of insulin being withheld, complications like dizziness and sores left untreated, and diets that could trigger dangerous blood sugar spikes. A lawsuit against ICE filed in federal court in San Francisco alleges that people with diabetes and other chronic illnesses were not given sufficient care at another detention center operated by CoreCivic in California City, and a judge has issued an injunction requiring the center to meet medical standards. 

The claims of poor medical care come amid a steep increase in the number of immigrants detained in ICE facilities. Nationwide, that number peaked at more than 73,000 in January 2026, one year after the Trump administration began a nationwide detention blitz, arresting thousands of immigrants. In 2025, 31 people died in ICE custody, nearly triple the number who died in 2024; in the first four months of 2026, the number of deaths was already 18. 

For most people in detention, their worst offense was crossing the border without permission or failing to renew a visa. The majority of migrants swept up in recent crackdowns by the Trump administration had no criminal record.  

Last year, the detention population at Otay Mesa passed 1,500 people, a number widely reported as surpassing the facility’s occupancy limit. CoreCivic did not respond directly to questions about its current occupancy limit, but said “The occupancy of our facilities … meets all federal standards.”  When numbers surge, detainees sleep on cots on the floor, the California DOJ report found.

For the Mexican man, the story of his medical care includes a string of complaints about diabetes medication, trips to the hospital, and injuries he says have left him permanently disabled. 

“Look at me — I’m not that old,” he said in an interview, “and here I am walking with a cane.” 

A medical exam room at Otay Mesa Detention Center. (California Department of Justice)

Inside detention center, at odds over diabetes medication

Hundreds of pages of medical records provided to Times of San Diego by the man and his attorney paint a picture of deteriorating health, beginning in his first few days at Otay Mesa. 

The records include copies of his “sick call request” forms, which detainees fill out when they ask for medical attention, as well as “grievance” forms he filed over concerns about his care.  

When he arrived, he was taken off Trulicity, a GLP-1 agonist that stabilizes his blood sugar, and given pure insulin alone. 

Nurses’ notes from the man’s first week at Otay Mesa, in mid-December 2024, reveal dysregulated diabetes careening towards a medical emergency. 

“Patient states taking the insulin here is causing him to feel sleepy and feels like his sugars are up and down… he feels like his sugars are not controlled.”

“Patient found on top of his bed stating ‘I have low blood sugar,’ ‘I need to eat.’” The note lists his blood sugar at 55mg/dL, a reading that the American Diabetes Association classifies as severe hypoglycemia. The next day, his blood sugar swung to 549, severe hyperglycemia. 

The nurse’s records document the man telling staff, “I am so weak and shaky.”  

“Bilateral hands are tremulous,” the nurse writes. “Blood sugar checked, was 64.”

In one nurse’s note from January 2025, after a month in the facility, the nurse writes that the Mexican man said he had not been allowed to take his nightly snack into his housing pod, essential to regulating his blood sugar overnight, when he is at risk for dangerously low readings; the note indicated the nurse would contact a doctor to seek permission for the man to keep snacks.  

Medication lists and a request form sent from Core Civic staff to Immigration and Customs Enforcement indicate the Mexican man was finally prescribed Trulicity, the medication he was on prior to his detention, five months after he arrived at Otay Mesa.  

But the Mexican man says even that prescription did not guarantee he would always receive the medication, or that CoreCivic staff would know how to properly administer the injection. 

In June 2025, he submitted a complaint saying the nurse did not administer his Trulicity shot correctly. “More than half was dropped on the floor. Painful.” 

A CoreCivic staff member responded, “We are unable to prove that the injection was administered ‘incorrectly’ … however the nurses will be made aware of your claim.”  

In a follow-up grievance on July 5, the man writes that the nurse told him she learned how to administer a shot on Youtube. A staff response from five days later says, “You have not been on Trulicity since May 8,” rejecting his complaint.  

The Mexican man responds, saying, “Stop with all this bunch of lies.”

A medication list from June 2025 includes Trulicity as one of his prescriptions. 

The California DOJ report cites “records irregularities” at the detention center, in which inmates’ medical records are inconsistent and their medications are changed without notification. Investigators found detainees had arrived with medications that were taken from them, who did not receive them again “for several days to over two weeks, or telling intake clinicians about their existing medications but not receiving these for similar periods of time.”

In state investigators’ view, “the system for assessing and tracking the urgency of care needs relies more on the efforts of individual motivated employees than on a well running system,” the report states. 

Inconsistent medication is not the only hurdle the man described. For a person with diabetes, staying alive requires a careful balance of insulin and blood sugar from food.

The food served in the detention center, even as part of the “health diet,” is “a lot of carbohydrates, rice, and potatoes,” the Mexican man told Times of San Diego, which can make his blood sugar go haywire. Records indicate that in his first eight months at Otay Mesa, he gained 30 pounds.

Doctors’ notes from his first few months in the facility instruct the man to eat healthier food to regulate his blood sugar. One note in his files shows a doctor urging him to carry around apple slices. The Mexican man said he received an apple only one time at Otay Mesa, during the intake process on his first day at the detention center. 

A diet request form confirms that the Mexican man asked for the Kosher meal plan, which he says includes more vegetables and met his dietary needs. He said that process took months of studying the Torah and meeting with a rabbi for the detention center to deem him Jewish. 

But in December 2025, after a year in detention, the man told Times of San Diego he was resorting to not eating some days because medical staff failed to administer his medicine.  

While the man’s medical records document his extensive complaints and staff responses, they do not include records that might document whether or not any given medication was provided on any given day. 

CoreCivic, in a statement, said detainees’ prescriptions are “either managed by our health services team or by the detainees themselves, depending on the type of medication.” A representative said the company could not discuss any individual detainee’s health status, but that the company is committed to high-quality healthcare. 

“Our chronic care diabetic patients receive blood sugar testing, insulin and diabetic medications when indicated, and they are placed on a diabetic diet,” Brian Todd, a CoreCivic public affairs manager, wrote. “ Appropriate snacks are also provided. These patients are monitored by a chronic care specialty nurse. … Diabetic diets are planned and managed in accordance with  ADA guidelines. Challenges to managing chronic care conditions inside a detention facility can be similar to those in the community.”   

In response to questions from Times of San Diego about what recourse inmates have if staff fail to provide a necessary medicine, Todd wrote, “If a detainee is not satisfied with the facility’s response to a grievance, they may contact ICE directly.”

ICE’s inmate handbook instructs detainees on how to submit complaints and grievances, but does not offer any advice for what to do if staff disregard those complaints. The booklet also treats necessary medications as a given, not considering the possibility they might not be provided.

Ambulance calls, hospitalizations, doctors

As a private contractor for the Department of Homeland Security, Otay Mesa Detention Center offers little in the way of public transparency. But county, state, and federal records reveal increasing instances of medical distress. 

According to internal records from CALFire, which manages ambulance dispatch in parts of San Diego County, the number of ambulance calls annually from Otay Mesa Detention Center tripled from 2021 to 2025. According to TRACReports, a non-profit that compiles ICE records, the total number of detainees also appeared to triple during that time. 

Internal ICE records obtained by the Deportation Data Project, run by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, show hospitalizations of ICE inmates at San Diego hospitals more than doubled from 2024 to 2025. While the records don’t identify where the detainee was held prior to their hospitalization, the majority of ICE detainees in San Diego County are held at Otay Mesa. 

Ambulance dispatch reports from 2025 include notes indicating that people are detained at the Otay Mesa facility with serious health conditions, like seizures, heart and lung diseases, intestinal disorders and complications of pregnancy. 

Over a dozen dispatch reports from the first half of 2025 reveal that inmates were injured in accidents or disputes at the detention center, with 911 operators writing “traumatic injuries,” “assault,” or “head trauma” on ambulance calls. 

CoreCivic staff told U.S. representatives Mike Levin (D-Carlsbad) and Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego) in April 2026 that the facility had only two doctors. The California DOJ report states that the facility has five doctors, but only some of them work full time. 

In March 2026, the Medical Board of California filed a formal complaint against one of these doctors, Dr. John Petitt, who is listed as the physician on several of the Mexican man’s medical records from Otay Mesa. 

The accusation against Petitt cites the board’s authority to order a physician to be examined by psychologists or other doctors whenever it appears the license-holder’s “ability to practice is impaired due to mental illness, or physical illness affecting competency.”

The board documents say investigators directed Petitt to attend a mental and physical exam, and that his attorney sent them an email saying he would not comply. He missed both scheduled exams, the accusation says. 

Petitt was previously cited by the Medical Board starting in 2007, over allegations including cases where he prescribed hundreds of doses of painkillers for people who were no longer his patients, and later for violations related to alcohol and required training to keep his license in good standing. 

In April 2026, Petitt’s license was suspended. In May, he signed a stipulated order to surrender his medical license, agreeing that he would “lose all rights and privileges as a physician and surgeon in California.” Petitt did not respond to requests to comment for this article. 

CoreCivic said in a statement that its clinics “are staffed by licensed health care professionals including physicians … who contractually meet the highest standards of care, as verified by multiple audits and inspections.” 

In a response to subsequent questions about Petitt, a CoreCivic representative said “all staff who interact with detainees undergo an extensive background clearance process facilitated and approved by ICE.”

The company confirmed that Petitt “previously worked at the Otay Mesa Detention Center (OMDC) for about 18 months,” and said, “As a general policy, CoreCivic does not comment on personnel matters.”

No insulin and a dangerous diet: ‘I would die’ 

Though she was detained only briefly, another person told Times of San Diego that poor diabetes care at Otay Mesa had put her life at risk. 

Hanne Daguman, an immigrant from Norway who says she was detained by mistake at a green card hearing in November 2025, has type 1 diabetes. Months later, she said, her arrest was proven to be the result of a clerical error. 

In an interview in March 2026, Daguman said she did not receive consistent doses of insulin — which she usually takes five or six times a day  — for five days, but she was still served trays of food. 

“They gave me white bread, rice, pasta, cake, things that I cannot eat without insulin. If I ate them, I would go into diabetic ketoacidosis and I would die,” she said. 

Daguman says she did not eat for five days, and lost 10 pounds. 

By day three, Daguman says she had blurry vision, dizziness, nausea, and loss of balance. “When I tried to stand up a couple times, I just fell back to my knees on the floor. I would see black.”

“I was worried that I was going to die,” she said. But, as her symptoms deepened, “I felt like I didn’t want to live anymore.”

For two weeks after leaving the detention center, ICE required her to wear an ankle monitor and she could not leave her house, so she could not see a doctor. 

Months later, Daguman says she is in therapy to cope with recurrent nightmares. In dreams, “I just relive the experience, or I get arrested again and go through something even worse,” she said. 

Otay Mesa is not the only facility where CoreCivic is facing scrutiny over claims of subpar medical care. The company operates another ICE detention center in California City, where seven inmates, along with the ACLU and Disability Rights CA, filed the lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that conditions in the detention center are “life-threatening,” as inmates were denied necessary medical care for chronic conditions like diabetes and cancer. 

In February, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in the case, stating that the Department of Homeland Security “must provide adequate medical care” to detainees, including “timely access to prescribed medications.” The government has appealed.

Richard Díaz, a senior attorney for Disability Rights CA, said subpar medical care at ICE detention centers is not a new phenomenon, and he saw similar issues when touring detention facilities during the first Trump administration. 

“But I think this past year it was worse just because there was just such a fast increase [in detention population] that the facilities weren’t ready for,” Díaz said. 

“Overcrowding at the facility impacts cleanliness of the housing units and puts a strain on the resources available for all detainees,” the California DOJ investigators wrote in their report.

Healthcare at Otay Mesa has been the subject of scrutiny for nearly two decades. In 2007, while the center was run by a different contractor, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against ICE and the contractor. That suit included similar reports of long wait times for treatment and denials of necessary medications. The case was eventually sent to mediation, where the defendants agreed to comply with a variety of new healthcare guidelines.

Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff’s office compiled a report detailing over 500 complaints of inadequate medical care at ICE detention facilities nationwide between January and August 2025, including diabetic people left without insulin for days. 

The breaking point

One day in March 2025, the Mexican man suffered a fall. 

In a signed statement from his detention records, dictated in Spanish, the Mexican man says he slipped and fell on a puddle of water, inducing severe pain and causing something to “pop” his back.

He says he was “heading towards the telephones, when I suddenly felt myself start to slip” on a puddle of water.

After he fell, the man said, a security officer called the onsite medical clinic. “She only got a response from them saying that I had to submit a sick-call request in order to be attended,” he wrote in his sworn declaration. 

Once in the medical clinic, he says he fainted, collapsing and hitting his head on a nearby oxygen tank, which injured his jaw, teeth, and right eye. Sudden dips and spikes in blood sugar from insulin dysregulation can cause dizziness and muscle weakness. Medical staff called an ambulance. 

At the hospital, he says nurses and a doctor asked to speak to him privately. “At first the officers refused, arguing that they were there to ensure I did not speak privately with anyone… and that under no circumstances was I allowed to say anything about what had happened inside CoreCivic facilities,” he wrote. 

“Our staff accompany detainees during offsite medical visits. There are no rules that would keep a detainee from speaking to a health care provider about OMDC,” the CoreCivic representative wrote in a response to questions from Times of San Diego. 

After this event, the Mexican man says he was forced to climb the stairs multiple times a day with severe back pain, and with frequent spells of weakness and dizziness.

Three days later, he fell down the stairs. 

When he came to, he says a Core Civic guard was sitting on him, performing a procedure known as a sternal rub. 

“She kept pressing with such force that she made me scream from the pain she was causing. She continued yelling at me, ‘What’s your name? Say your name!’ But I did not respond, because at that moment I truly could not remember,” he said.

Then, he says he heard the guard say “‘He’s just faking it. He’s fine. It’s all lies.’” But the Mexican man states he saw her make the other guards “pinky promise” not to share what had happened. 

In response to a formal complaint, Core Civic staff wrote the next week that “This incident was seen by security and no inappropriate force was viewed.” 

In the next two months, the Mexican man says his injuries, instead of healing, became chronic. He sent at least 16 medical requests and complaints during this time, asking for further care for his back, jaw, and teeth. 

Over a month after the incident, after multiple requests, he was provided with a cane. 

“All detainees have daily access to sign up for medical care,” a Core Civic representative wrote in a response to questions from Times of San Diego about how it handles discipline for employees and allegations of mistreatment. “We have a robust grievance process available to all detainees that provides multiple safe and discrete avenues for concerns to be raised…” The representative did not elaborate on what an inmate could do if their requests for care and their formal grievances went unanswered or were rejected. 

In many of his complaints, the Mexican man asks for medical assistance for his jaw, which he said “swelled up” after he hit his head. He was seen by a facial surgeon four months after the injury. 

A note from a facial surgeon at Pacifica Center states, “The patient has had severe trauma from his fall. Patient has been informed that his TMJ’s will never be the same post fall.” The surgeon requests a follow-up appointment for the next week, to assess whether he needs surgery, but there is no record of it occurring.

At an onsite dentist visit two days later, a dentist’s note reads, “Patient stated tooth has been loose from his fall in March. Explained to patient that bacteria has been leaking through the root canal since it has been loose.” 

The dentist explains that because the tooth did not receive any attention in the months after the accident and became infected, the only recourse left would be to pull it out. 

The California DOJ report alleges that lapses in scheduling follow-up appointments with specialists, even for inmates with serious health conditions, are common, with detainees reporting that CoreCivic staff failed to follow hospital discharge instructions and failed to make appointments for necessary cancer surgeries and colonoscopies.  

In a nurse’s note, the Mexican man is listed as having 23 active health problems. In complaints to Core Civic staff, he laments his situation, navigating chronic pain while in a detention center. “It’s ridiculous to be suffering this much pain and only receive tylenol and ibuprofen,” he writes. 

Government oversight attempts 

In February of this year, San Diego County supervisors Paloma Aguirre and Tara Lawson-Remer arrived at Otay Mesa Detention Center armed with paper checklists. They said they had heard reports of poor medical care and nutrition inside the facility. Aguirre said one report that an inmate had gone “300 days without fresh fruit” had driven her to request an inspection.  

Even though both ICE and CoreCivic had approved their visit just two days before, they said, they were turned away at the door. 

In a response to questions from Times of San Diego, a CoreCivic representative said, “Fruits and vegetables are a regular part of the menu, and any claim otherwise is patently false.”

State law gives county public health officers the authority to inspect privately run detention facilities.  

California Sen. Alex Padilla also did not make it past the lobby, though federal law gives members of Congress special authority to monitor immigration detention centers through in-person visits. In a news conference on the sidewalk, with Core Civic guards circling the parking lot in white pickup trucks, the senator said guards told him he had to request an appointment with ICE seven days in advance to enter. The administration’s efforts to put seven-day waiting periods on congressional visits is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit on behalf of numerous members of Congress.

The county’s public health officer was allowed to tour a limited area of the detention center, which included medical transport bays. 

Less than three weeks later, San Diego County filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Trump administration for blocking their officials’ inspection of the facility; a judge earlier this month ordered ICE and CoreCivic to allow the inspection, but the case remains in court. 

“It’s extremely concerning, because what exactly is going on there that we can’t see?” Aguirre said. 

After giving advance notice, U.S. Reps. Mike Levin and Sara Jacobs were allowed to inspect the Otay Mesa facility in April, and they said they ate baked beans and hot dogs in the detention center cafeteria, which Levin said was “edible, but not winning any awards.”

At another news conference on the sidewalk next to a fence lined with barbed wire, Levin and Jacobs said they were concerned the conditions they saw in the detention center were posed, and did not represent reality. “It’s hard to know how much of the cleanliness is for us or is the standard,” Levin said. 

But after meeting with Core Civic medical staff, Levin said the facilities appeared “on par with the civilian world.” If three doses of medication are missed, Levin said staff told him “there’s an attempt to resolve it.”

“I believe they’re doing the best they can,” Levin said. 

Waiting behind bars 

In one year of detention, the Mexican man says his family paid over $21,000, between hiring an immigration lawyer and paying for commissary and phone expenses. His immigration lawyer, who also asked not to be named to protect the man’s identity, said his case was likely to stretch on for months or years. 

The man depended on the drug Trulicity to stabilize his blood sugar. While he was held at Otay Mesa, he said he struggled to receive it properly. (Photo by Lillian Perlmutter/Times of San Diego)

The Mexican man is thin, wears large glasses, and walks with a limp. His right eye is enlarged and purple, because there is “blood trapped behind it” from the fall, he says. 

During visiting hours in December 2025, in a white-walled room, surveilled by a camera and a guard, he showed how his jaw now sits off-center as a result of the accident. “It’s in the wrong place,” he says. “When I eat, I bite my cheeks.”

Over the next few months, he repeatedly said he would consider going off his meds or staging a hunger strike. 

“They’re denying my civil rights,” he said. “I hold the detention center responsible for anything that happens to me.”

In May 2026, the Mexican man’s lawyer filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in a federal court, arguing that his detention was not legal. The filing included evidence of his poor health in the detention center and an external assessment from a doctor. 

A judge ruled that because the man had been paroled into the U.S. after a previous immigration arrest years ago, his new arrest had violated his right to due process, and he should be immediately released. 

The man left Otay Mesa with a box containing a small supply of his various medications in blister packets and vials with a few syringes for injection. A week after his release, the man noticed one of the packets contained a drug he was not prescribed and included a label with another man’s name: he had been taking someone else’s medication.

Though he has recurrent back pain, he is missing a tooth, and his jaw is off-center, the man says he is not consumed by anger. “I’m just happy to be out of there,” he said.