Contractors running Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities can rely more heavily on artificial intelligence tools to communicate with detainees while continuing to pay people they hold $1 per day for “voluntary work,” under relaxed detention standards released Monday.
ICE said the standards, which apply to for-profit contractors and jails that hold detainees, were revised with input from partners to “reduce the burden on our detention operators.” Experts said the changes would help contractors limit legal liability, reduce costs and get more operational flexibility while doing little, if anything, to improve conditions for roughly 60,000 people currently detained.
“100% it’s going to result in deterioration of already problematic conditions of detention,” said Michelle Brane, a former Department of Homeland Security ombudsman who oversaw immigration detention practices during part of the Biden administration. “It’s consistent with their general practice, which is to eliminate accountability and oversight. They are not concerned with people’s basic rights or safety of detainees.”
The revisions come as ICE detention facilities are reporting deaths in unprecedented numbers and face accusations of medical neglect, inadequate food and other inhumane conditions. They come as ICE is flush with cash, receiving more than half of the $70 billion immigration enforcement spending bill signed by President Donald Trump last week.
Dr. Sanjay Basu, a public health researcher who has studied ICE custody deaths, said the changes include “genuine improvements” to suicide prevention standards and mental health care. But he said the overall trajectory is “toward weaker standards governing a growing share of the detained population.”
ICE said the changes streamline its rules and move toward more relaxed standards used by the U.S. Marshals Service to hold pretrial federal inmates in jails. The agency said it considered input from operators “alongside operational, legal and policy requirements when making a final decision."
Dr. Homer Venters, an expert on correctional health care, said the changes could curtail access to language assistance by eliminating mandates that required in-person and telephone interpretation and translation services.
The revised standard says facilities can use artificial intelligence tools such as machine-learning-based translation or generative AI for “noncritical communication” or “informal interactions with detainees.” That communication could include giving and receiving information to or from detainees during intake, having conversations with detainees in housing units and responding to a detainee’s grievance or other concerns, it says.
Venters called the changes alarming because grievances often include “very urgent or even emergent information such as when a patient has been denied lifesaving care.” He said the rule also leaves unclear whether health assessments, crucial to flagging medical and mental health conditions, could be conducted through AI.
ICE said the standards ensure contractors provide interpretation and translation services “at no cost to the detainees.”
Several experts said they were concerned by a change that bars facility operators from refusing to admit any detainee ICE sends them.
The change means facilities may not be able to immediately refer severely ill or disabled detainees whom they cannot accommodate to hospitals or other settings for care — but it could reduce their liability for subsequent deaths. A related rule change requires facilities to request that ICE transfer detainees they cannot serve elsewhere, but that might not happen for several days after they are admitted.
New language making clear that detainees who participate in voluntary work programs are not employees and therefore not entitled to wages and benefits “is a favor” to ICE’s for-profit contractors, said Dora Schriro, former director of ICE’s Office of Detention Policy and Planning during the Obama administration.
For years, advocates for detainees have argued in lawsuits that these programs, in which detainees have received a minimum stipend of $1 per work day, amount to forced labor. The lawsuits have sought millions of dollars in unpaid wages from ICE contractors like GeoGroup and CoreCivic, and now they could face tougher odds of success by strengthening their legal defenses, Schriro said.
Another change bars facilities from paying above the longtime $1-per-day minimum stipend, which was allowed under the previous standard and an argument that had been used against contractors in court, said Carmen Iguina Gonzalez, an immigration detention expert at the American Civil Liberties Union. She said the work can include cleaning dormitories, cutting hair and other tasks that keep facilities running.
Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former DHS and ICE official who is an expert on detention standards, said ICE could use its increased budget to improve conditions instead of “lowering standards across the board.” She recalled that under prior administrations, she pushed ICE facilities to add soccer fields and other recreation and visitation improvements with leftover money.
“Their goal is to make it easier for the jail operators,” she said. “No longer are they trying to make sure the focus is on the detainees and their care and the experience in custody.”
FILE - The Winn Correctional Center, an ICE detention facility, is seen in this aerial photo in Winnfield, La., April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Gov. Mike DeWine on Tuesday used his bully pulpit to call for an end to the death penalty in Ohio.
The 79-year-old Republican cited his expertise on the issue as a former county prosecutor, member of both chambers of Congress and Ohio attorney general, as well as his seven years as governor.
But DeWine’s support for a policy change is far from assured to make waves, even in a state controlled by his own party. That is because DeWine is more moderate than many younger Republicans in the state, whose political aspirations rely on endorsements from President Donald Trump, a staunch death penalty supporter.
Here's a closer look at DeWine and his place in Ohio's political landscape:
DeWine was first elected to public office in 1976, when he became prosecuting attorney in Greene County, where he grew up. He still lives in the historic home there where he and his wife, who had eight children, hosted a summer ice cream social each year to encourage and celebrate GOP candidates and officeholders. The event ended its 50-year run just last weekend.
When DeWine was elected to the state Senate in 1980, Ohio had no death penalty law. The old one had been declared unconstitutional, and DeWine was instrumental in writing the new one, which cleared both legislative chambers with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. It has been in effect now since 1981.
He said Tuesday that he always believed the moral justification for the death penalty was its potential to deter violent crime.
During his four terms in the U.S. House, DeWine supported federal legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan that expanded the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty. As a U.S. senator, he backed a bill signed by President Bill Clinton that attempted to speed up the review of capital cases in federal courts.
In between those positions, DeWine was lieutenant governor of Ohio under storied Republican Gov. James Rhodes.
He took a brief break from politics after losing a Senate reelection bid to Democrat Sherrod Brown in 2006, before being elected Ohio attorney general in 2010. In that role, he said Tuesday, he “vigorously” carried out the state's death penalty law.
Since he became governor in 2019, problems obtaining lethal injection drugs have led to an unofficial moratorium on executions in the state, which last conducted one in 2018.
DeWine may be the titular head of the Ohio Republican Party, but that doesn't mean his party always listens to him. Particularly in the Trump era, he has presided over a party rife with internal divisions.
Clashes became particularly fierce during the COVID-19 pandemic, when DeWine and then-state Health Director Amy Acton — now the Democratic nominee for governor — presided over one of the most rigorous virus responses in the country in early 2020. Within months, a faction of Republicans had mutinied against DeWine's mandates, particularly over business closures, threatening to pass a bill limiting his powers or even to impeach him.
In 2023, after DeWine struck down a ban on gender-affirming care and transgender athletes participating in girls' sports, the Republican-dominated state Legislature easily overrode his veto.
The divisions have also been seen in this year's critical elections.
DeWine had tried to position popular former Ohio State Buckeyes football coach Jim Tressel as a potential successor, appointing the moderate Republican as lieutenant governor last year. But the state GOP rushed to back Trump-endorsed biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy in the race in May 2025, before Tressel had even made up his mind whether to run. DeWine endorsed Ramaswamy in January.
DeWine said Tuesday that he had not shared his decision to call for an end to the death penalty with Ramaswamy, now the GOP gubernatorial nominee. The recent effort by the Trump administration to take on Medicaid fraud has found DeWine defending his administration's work on the issue, even as Ramaswamy, Ohio-born Vice President JD Vance and GOP lawmakers take aim at Ohio's existing fraud-fighting efforts.
Among proponents of DeWine's push to end the death penalty in Ohio were a host of fellow Republicans, including some staunch conservatives.
“For many years, I was a proponent of the death penalty," former congresswoman and current state Rep. Jean Schmidt said in a statement. "My views changed because of the risks of executing an innocent person, the exorbitant costs, and my belief in the sanctity of life. The death penalty is no longer a policy worth preserving.”
Former Ohio Auditor and Attorney General Jim Petro cited wrongful convictions among the flaws that make the death penalty no longer tenable.
Former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, the great-grandson of President William Howard Taft and grandson of “Mr. Republican” Sen. Robert A. Taft Sr., also sided with DeWine.
DeWine “has been thoughtful and given this issue the careful consideration it needs,” Taft said.
FILE - Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, right, looks on as former National Archives employee Robert Wolfe speaks at a Washington news conference, May 13, 2004. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
FILE - Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, left, debates his challenger Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, on NBC's 'Meet the Press' Oct. 1, 2006, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)
FILE - Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine talks with former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel while standing on the sideline prior to the start of an NFL football game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns, Oct. 20, 2024, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Kirk Irwin, File)
