The 23-year-old man arrived at immigration court in New York City this spring with no obvious signs of illness.
That changed after federal immigration officials took the man, Javier Tomas Muñoz Materano, into custody.
For more than three months, he was held in detention and not allowed to bathe or change clothes for days at a time as he was transferred 10 times to eight facilities across four states. He eventually began feeling excruciating pain and discomfort in his genitalia. At times his legs became numb, and he lost the ability to walk. A judge ordered his release in September, agreeing with his lawyers that he had “a sufficiently serious medical condition” to be let out. In his decision, the judge chronicled the graphic details of what Mr. Muñoz Materano had gone through, saying that that ICE officials had acted “with deliberate indifference” toward his medical needs.
Across the United States, several other judges have also criticized conditions at federal immigration detention centers or released migrants who lacked access to adequate medical care.
In August, a federal judge directed the Trump administration to fix what detainees have called squalid and overcrowded conditions inside migrant holding cells in New York City. In October, a judge in Detroit ordered that a Michigan man who had leukemia be released from custody or at least be given a bond hearing in immigration court as he faced the prospect of deportation. And in November, a judge in Chicago imposed restrictions on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility that he said had subjected migrants to “conditions that are unnecessarily cruel.”
Their actions highlight tension over what migrants and human rights advocates have denounced as inhumane treatment by the Trump administration. ICE officials have denied mistreating detainees.
The case of Mr. Muñoz Materano offers an especially telling example of the neglect cited by judges. The skin on his legs became itchy, and his genitalia began to swell, according to court records. He felt a burning sensation when he urinated. The apparent infection also seemed to spread to his face. Later, when he could not walk, he was given a wheelchair.
While in detention, he had nearly two dozen medical appointments with nurses and physician assistants who prescribed medication, according to federal immigration officials. But U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos wrote in his Sept. 9 decision that “as a result of the frequent, haphazard transfers to which he was subjected,” Mr. Muñoz Materano was not allowed to consistently take the medicine, and his symptoms worsened.
In an interview, Mr. Muñoz Materano said that he pleaded for the medicine, including an antifungal and antibiotic. He said he explained to prison officials that he was in pain, but he was told that ICE had not authorized them to give him the medicine.
“I would tell them, from the heart, that it hurt,” Mr. Muñoz Materano said in Spanish. “That I was sick.”
Andrew Free, a former immigration and civil rights lawyer who researches conditions and deaths in ICE custody, said that before this year, immigration officials were more likely to release detainees if their continued incarceration could put them in peril, such as at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
But Mr. Free said that as President Trump has expanded his crackdown on legal and illegal immigration, the government has imposed a harder line.
Mr. Muñoz Materano’s lawyers brought his case before Judge Ramos to argue that his detention was unlawful because it violated his due process as someone living lawfully in the country. They also argued that his incarceration later endangered his health.
In an email, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, rejected criticism regarding the agency’s treatment of detainees. She said that Mr. Muñoz Materano was given comprehensive medical care, receiving at least 23 medical appointments and intake screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility. Ms. McLaughlin did not address complaints from Mr. Muñoz Materano that he was deprived of access to a bath and clean clothes.
“This is the best health care many aliens have received in their entire lives,” Ms. McLaughlin said.
She referred to Judge Ramos as a “lone activist judge” and said that “smears like these” have led to an increase in assaults against ICE officers.
Mr. Muñoz Materano’s legal team retained the services of Dr. Kate S. Sugarman, a family medicine doctor in Washington who evaluated Mr. Muñoz Materano’s medical records and found symptoms of a fungal skin infection. Separately, she said the records showed that a lump in his testicles could be a sign of testicular torsion or of cancer.
“When a man has a mass in his testicles, it’s an emergency to make sure that that mass is not cancer,” Dr. Sugarman said. “Any delay in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer means that the cancer can spread and then the patient can die.”
Dr. Sugarman expressed concern that Mr. Muñoz Materano had not been “referred to a urologist or oncologist, nor received diagnostic imaging or a biopsy,” and she said that his medical records “do not indicate appropriate referrals, imaging, testing or follow-up care.” She said that immigration officials had displayed a lack of urgency about the serious decline in his health and had risked his death, calling their behavior “inexcusable.”
Since he was freed on Sept. 9 and taken to an emergency room at a New York hospital, medical officials have not diagnosed his condition. He lost his job and has struggled to find work and housing because of his pain. His lawyer, Rosanna Eugenio, said that he lost health insurance as a result of his detention. Ms. Eugenio said that he is working with his legal team to enter a program that can help him receive comprehensive care.
Mr. Muñoz Materano’s journey to the United States began after his family in Venezuela was targeted by Tren de Aragua gang members who invaded their home and threatened to kill them at gunpoint, according to the judge’s ruling in his case. He entered the United States through El Paso about two years ago by applying for a government program created by the Biden administration that allowed migrants to use an app to secure an appointment for admission.
He was granted humanitarian parole and given a work permit, which led to a job as a warehouse worker in Brooklyn. But on May 21, when he went to a scheduled asylum hearing at an immigration court in New York City, four people in plainclothes with no identification or badges rushed toward him, handcuffed him and took him to a van. They then took him to 26 Federal Plaza, the New York City headquarters of ICE, which has become synonymous with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
In his ruling, Judge Ramos noted that Mr. Muñoz Materano had been “living and lawfully working in the U.S., with no criminal history, for nearly two years.”
The Trump administration views the situation differently: “Javier Tomas Muñoz Materano never had legal status in this country,” said Ms. McLaughlin, arguing that the Biden administration had abused its parole authority by releasing him into the United States.
“I lost everything the day that they arrested me,” Mr. Muñoz Materano said in October during an interview at the offices of the New York Immigration Coalition, an advocacy group that arranged for his legal defense. “Absolutely everything.”
Mr. Muñoz Materano interrupted himself during the interview to say that he was in agonizing pain as he frowned and stirred in his seat. He stood up and sat down again as he struggled to find a comfortable position.
“I tried to follow the laws of the United States, and I was treated like a criminal,” Mr. Muñoz Materano said. “Many other people are going through the same thing that I am.”
Civil rights groups have raised concerns about at least two of the eight detention centers that Mr. Muñoz Materano was taken to: the Orange County Jail in Goshen, N.Y., and the El Paso Service Processing Center in Texas.
He was also taken to facilities in Louisiana and New Jersey.
In October, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest released a report about the Orange County Jail that delineated a lack of care for people with chronic conditions and issues with medication. The group is a nonprofit organization that offers legal assistance to immigrants.
Amnesty International issued a similar report after a visit in April to the El Paso Service Processing Center, where the organization heard reports of Venezuelans being disproportionately targeted under the Alien Enemies Act. Some were labeled as being gang-affiliated without evidence, subjected to solitary confinement and abused by guards, the organization said.
Sophie Dalsimer, the co-director of health justice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, said Mr. Muñoz Materano’s case “is tragically emblematic of many of the abuses that we found.”
In late October, Senator Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, released an investigation that included 85 reports of medical neglect in immigration detention centers across the country, including cases that led to life-threatening injuries and complications.
Ana Ley is a Times reporter covering immigration in New York City.
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