ICE detainees at Mississippi prison suffer gas leak, heat and denied care

Detainees at a Mississippi ICE detention center reported illness after a gas leak and endured extreme heat during a prolonged power outage, with officials denying that medical treatment was refused.

At the privately run Adams County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, detainees fell ill after a reported gas leak, experiencing headaches and other respiratory complaints. The incident occurred on a Saturday, and the men were moved outside for hours in 100-degree weather before being brought back to cells that still smelled of gas. A subsequent power outage, triggered by a storm, left the facility without air conditioning for two days, causing overcrowded cells to become unbearably hot and sparking increased tensions among inmates.

Families allege that officials barred tablet devices to stop detainees from contacting the outside world and threatened solitary confinement for any organizing attempts. CoreCivic’s senior director of public affairs, Ryan Gustin, dismissed the allegations, stating that staff found no evidence of a leak, that the outage did not affect cooling systems, and that no one was denied medical treatment. The facility houses over 2,000 detainees on a 14-acre site, with a small percentage having criminal records, and the conditions mirror broader reports of poor hygiene and illness in ICE detention centers nationwide.