Whoever at DHS sat on these reports of horrific abuse in ICE’s detention centers, as conditions worsened, needs to go.

They need to be gone, now. And held accountable.

From the linked article: These findings are all part of a trove of more than 1,600 pages of previously secret inspection reports written by experts hired by the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. In examining more than two dozen facilities across 16 states from 2017 to 2019, these expert inspectors found "negligent" medical care (including mental health care), "unsafe and filthy" conditions, racist abuse of detainees, inappropriate pepper-spraying of mentally ill detainees and other problems that, in some cases, contributed to detainee deaths. These reports almost never become public. For more than three years, the federal government — under both the Trump and Biden administrations — fought NPR's efforts to obtain those records. That opposition continued despite a Biden campaign promise to "demand transparency in and independent oversight over ICE."

Thanks to NPR’s Tom Dreisbach for this investigative report.