Detainees held at the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi, say they were sickened by an unexplained gas leak and then went without air conditioning for two days during extreme heat, according to accounts shared with this publication by a man detained there through his family. He said requests for medical attention after the leak were ignored, and that the facility, operated by the private prison company CoreCivic under contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), left detainees exposed to near 100F heat for hours with no shade.
The detainee told his wife, a US citizen whose identity is being withheld out of fear of retaliation, that people held at the center were made to wait outside in blazing sun after the leak and then locked back inside a building that still smelled of gas. He said several men began suffering headaches and other symptoms consistent with gas exposure but were not given clear answers about the source of the leak or whether it had been resolved.
They evacuated them out into the afternoon heat for hours. They were outside for hours. And when they came back in, it still smelled of gas. And then some of the men were getting headaches and symptoms of inhaled gas. They were never really told where the leak came from, how it was resolved, or was it fully resolved.
She added that overcrowding at the facility has worsened alongside the reported illnesses.
Illness has been growing. So there are a lot of people getting sick, and they have begun putting people three to a cell that was designed for two.
What happened during the power outage?
According to the detainee, a lengthy power outage began on Monday, with electricity partially restored the following day so that lighting and basic operations could resume, but air conditioning did not return until late Wednesday. His wife said that during the outage, detainees were sometimes confined to sweltering cells and missed meals rather than being allowed into common areas.
When these things are happening, either they're shut out outside without shade and air conditioning, and they're not given any answers. Or a lot of the time the power was out they just had them locked in their cells, they didn't get to leave for dinner or breakfast. There's generators that run the defenses and things to make sure no one can escape, but they were without air conditioning for two days, and in Mississippi it's very hot right now.
She also alleged that staff withheld the tablet devices detainees normally use to contact relatives during the disruption, saying officials feared word of the conditions would spread.
They didn't give them the tablet devices during that time because they didn't want them notifying loved ones. If they feel anyone's organizing anything they'll send them to solitary.
How has CoreCivic responded to the allegations?
Ryan Gustin, CoreCivic's senior director of public affairs, disputed key parts of the detainee's account in a lengthy statement, saying the company had received inaccurate information about both the leak and the outage.
While several detainees thought they may have smelled something related to a natural gas leak, none of our staff members detected anything along these lines. Out of an abundance of caution, an on-call facility maintenance staff member came in to assess the facility for any possible gas leaks, and none were found.
Gustin said the outage stemmed from a storm on Monday that knocked out power to the facility and surrounding community for roughly two hours, and that emergency generators functioned as intended. He said a subsequent transformer failure, later replaced by the local power company, left lights out in the common area of a single housing pod but did not affect heating, ventilation or air conditioning systems at any point. He also denied that anyone was refused medical treatment.
We are committed to providing safe, humane and respectful care for everyone entrusted to us. Our clinic is staffed with licensed healthcare professionals including physicians, nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health counselors and dentists who contractually meet the highest standards of care, as verified by multiple audits and inspections.
Why is scrutiny of the facility intensifying now?
The allegations surfaced as ICE's Office of Detention Oversight documented 23 violations of use-of-force or restraint standards at Adams County following a May inspection, a finding that led the facility's rating to be downgraded this year from superior to acceptable/adequate. Adams County is one of the largest immigration detention facilities in the country and the only dedicated ICE facility in Mississippi, though CoreCivic also runs detention operations for the agency at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler.
Mississippi Today has previously reported that the 14-acre Natchez facility holds more than 2,000 detainees, but that only 9% of them have any criminal record. The man who described conditions to this publication has an active asylum application tied to a green-card case, has no criminal record, and was detained by ICE in January during what he understood to be a routine appointment.
Oversight of Adams County is not new. According to a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report cited by oversight.gov, a 2021 inspection found violations of ICE detention standards that endangered detainees' health, safety and rights, including a case in which a detained person who fell ill was not sent to a hospital for urgent care and later died; ICE accepted the recommendations that followed. Separately, the DHS Office of Inspector General's ongoing case file on the facility, last updated in 2025, indicates that compliance concerns at the site have persisted for years rather than emerging suddenly.
Public inspection records also show a more recent compliance review. A January 2025 ICE compliance inspection document for the Natchez facility represents the most recent official inspection record made public before this latest round of allegations. Meanwhile, the Global Detention Project's listing for Adams County shows the facility's overall inspection score had in recent years been rated "Good" or "Acceptable/Meets Standards," underscoring why this year's downgrade to acceptable/adequate is notable.
Is this part of a wider pattern across ICE facilities?
The claims from Natchez come amid mounting scrutiny of conditions across the ICE detention network. A third person held at the GEO Group-run Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey has died in custody, and family visitation at that facility only partially resumed after protests and a hunger strike, a dispute detailed in earlier reporting on unrest at Delaney Hall. Deaths in ICE custody have also been reported elsewhere this year, including that of a Venezuelan man, the 22nd such death recorded in 2026, which drew renewed calls for accountability over medical care in detention.
In April, Human Rights First published findings describing what it called widespread due process violations and inhumane conditions at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, another CoreCivic-operated facility housing families. Last month, a court-appointed monitor reviewing medical care at the California City detention center near Los Angeles identified significant gaps in emergency treatment, delays in providing medication, inadequate health screenings and a lack of accommodations for detainees with disabilities.
CoreCivic, headquartered in Tennessee, operates numerous facilities nationwide under government contracts, many tied to ICE. The company reported revenue rising to $2.2bn in 2025, which its president and chief executive officer, Patrick Swindle, attributed to what he described as the trust of government partners.
What are advocacy groups saying?
The Workers Circle, a New York-based Jewish social justice organization that supports families of detained immigrants and has held freedom vigils outside ICE facilities nationwide for more than a year, said it was troubled by the reports from Natchez. Jessica Burroughs, the group's national organizer for those vigils, said the organization intends to keep pressing for scrutiny.
No human being should be forced to endure the dangerous and inhumane conditions that have been reported here. We will continue to call attention to these reports until they are thoroughly investigated and addressed with the urgency they warrant. And we will demand accountability from those responsible to bring an end to these abuses once and for all.
Key Facts
- Detainees at Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi, reported a gas leak on a recent Saturday followed by headaches and other symptoms.
- A power outage beginning Monday left the facility without air conditioning until late Wednesday amid near 100F heat.
- An ICE Office of Detention Oversight inspection in May found 23 use-of-force or restraint violations, prompting a downgrade from superior to acceptable/adequate.
- The facility holds more than 2,000 detainees, though only 9% reportedly have criminal records, according to Mississippi Today.
- CoreCivic denies a gas leak occurred, denies any interruption to HVAC systems, and says no one was refused medical care.
