In a move that dates back to early October of last year, Department of Veterans‘ Affairs stopped reimbursing third parties for “medical care provided to detainees” in ICE‘s custody. As Judd Legum reports for Popular.Info, the halting of payments caused an ongoing crisis-of-care scandal that was ultimately sparked by a right-wing disinformation campaign.
According to previously unreported ICE documents, the VA ‘abruptly and instantly terminated’ its agreement with ICE on October 3. According to the partially redacted documents, which were quietly posted to a government contracting website on November 12, the termination left ICE with ‘no mechanism to provide prescribed medication’ and unable to ‘pay for medically necessary off-site care.’ Among the services ICE said it could not provide were ‘dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, [and] chemotherapy.’
The situation was described by ICE as an ‘absolute emergency’ that needed to be resolved ‘immediately’ to ‘prevent any further medical complications or loss of life.’
via Judd Legum, Popular.Info
The system where Veterans’ Affairs handles and facilitates ICE-detainee healthcare dates back to the George W. Bush administration—a policy left largely intact during Trump’s first White House stint.
The controversy over the arrangement between ICE and the VA began when Tommy Tuberville and Mike Bost introduced the ‘No VA Resources for Illegal Aliens Act in December 2023.’ The bill aimed to ‘prohibit the Secretary of Veterans Affairs from providing health care to, or engaging in claims processing for health care for’ undocumented immigrants.
via Judd Legum, Popular.Info
Lots of other right-wing personalities took up the “cause,” which then culminated in the termination in early October. As Legum further reports, reimbursements were supposed to resume on April 30, 2026: “But when that day arrived, payments to third party medical providers did not resume.”
The ceasing of payments coincides with a spike in detainee deaths and illnesses, Legum adds, which the TrumpFile team has covered extensively. In fairness, detainee deaths are well-documented before the payments stopped, and some are even being investigated as homicides.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
Let’s get one thing clear off the bat: no human being is “illegal.” That is garbage framing and a tired trope that the right wing has been pushing for literally decades now. Undocumented immigrants by law cannot, and do not, vote in U.S. elections. Similarly, Joe Biden neither created the scheme (VA facilitating ICE detainee care was a W Bush creation) nor did any VA resources go to immigrants—reimbursements happened under Bush II, Obama and Donald I without fanfare.
If America’s famously hysterical right wing could actually step back and hear themselves being profoundly dumb we might not have scandals like this happen in the first place. Republicans blocked immigration reform at every turn and then leap like trained monkeys every time Donald lies about immigrants (anything, actually). It’s a monstrous feedback loop that, if we play Midterm elections correctly, might mercifully come to a permanent end this November.
SOURCES
- Popular Information (May 2026)
- Popular Information (November 2025)
