We are proud to share with you the Florence Project’s most recent detention conditions report, “Medical Neglect, Strip Searches, and Abuse: Deadly and Dehumanizing Conditions in the Eloy Detention Center.” The report details the experiences of more than 60 people detained at the Eloy Detention Center between June 2024 and November 2025.
Because of people bravely choosing to share their experiences, we are able to shed light on what people in Eloy Detention Center have endured over the past year.
Complaints included medical neglect, mistreatment during mental health crises, broken air conditioning in the midst of the Arizona summer, verbal and physical abuse by guards, and aggressive and invasive strip searches. Some people have shared that detention has become so unbearable that they’d rather risk their lives in the dangerous situations they fled in order to be free from the detention center. Several have also indicated that they fear dying in Eloy.
One man, Ivan, was living in detention with an aortic aneurysm. Despite discovering in November 2024 that it had grown to a life-threatening size, it was not repaired until February 2025. Outside medical professionals who reviewed Ivan’s records confirmed that due to its size, it could have burst at any time, with a 100% mortality rate if it should burst. Ivan ultimately received the surgery before that happened, but he was handcuffed to his bed for his entire 10-day hospital stay after his surgery and his health continued to suffer when he returned to Eloy where he was given little to no post-operative care or diet for health.
For people in detention, contact with family is often critical to maintain their mental health and well-being. However, because people in immigration detention must pay by the minute to call their families, in person visitation is the only free way for people who are detained to talk to their loved ones. In Eloy, detained individuals are now subject to invasive and degrading strip searches on their way into and out of visitation, meaning they are forced to choose between enduring these humiliating searches to see their families or not speak or visit with their loved ones in person at all.
In 2025, most employees at the agencies that provided oversight of ICE detention centers were fired, giving these facilities license to operate largely unchecked. Organizations like the Florence Project are the eyes and ears on the ground to advocate for the rights and humane treatment of people in immigration detention, hold the government accountable, and work toward a future without immigration detention.