1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

I am writing as a Pennsylvania constituent to express grave concern about a sustained and well-documented pattern of inhumane treatment within federal immigration detention and enforcement, which can no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents or operational failures. Across multiple facilities and jurisdictions, reports describe children exposed to unsafe conditions, detainees suffering medical decline linked to inadequate nutrition and care, deaths in custody with credible witness accounts, prolonged detention without access to counsel, and basic necessities such as heat, hygiene products, and sanitary living conditions being withheld. Individuals have been released without transportation, support, or compensation after being wrongly detained, while families have been separated with little regard for caregiving responsibilities, income loss, or lasting harm. Taken together, these outcomes reveal a system that routinely disregards human welfare, due process, and even basic logic. Detaining people who pose no public safety risk, denying medical and humanitarian accommodations, blocking legal access, and abandoning individuals upon release does not advance immigration enforcement goals. It wastes public resources, exposes the government to liability, and inflicts preventable harm on families and communities. When the federal government takes someone into custody, it assumes total responsibility for their safety, health, and dignity. A system that repeatedly fails to meet that responsibility — across different facilities, populations, and time periods — is not simply flawed. It is operating without meaningful accountability. I am asking for decisive congressional action. Will you support comprehensive hearings examining detention conditions, access to counsel, medical care, family separation, and post-release treatment across immigration facilities? Will you support enforceable standards and independent monitoring, rather than reliance on internal agency review? And will you condition funding on demonstrable compliance with basic humanitarian and constitutional requirements? This is not about ideology. It is about whether the United States will tolerate a detention system that routinely produces suffering without necessity or justification. Congress has both the authority and the obligation to intervene. I urge you to do so.