Sponsors (3)
The bill increases transparency, family notification, oversight, and legal remedies for deaths and serious medical incidents in DHS/ICE custody, but it does so at the cost of substantial implementation and liability expenses, added administrative complexity, and privacy and operational risks that could shift costs and behavior across contractors, agencies, and health providers.
Families and designated contacts of people in ICE/DHS custody will receive faster, standardized, and language-accessible notifications about deaths and serious medical events, and people in custody can provide and update emergency contact, faith leader, and advance directive information.
Stronger oversight and transparency: deaths and serious incidents must be reported and investigated quickly, semiannual and annual reports and IG audits are required, and independent review findings are shared with oversight offices.
People held in custody (and their emergency contacts/next-of-kin) gain a private right of action with meaningful damages and fee awards, and sovereign immunity is waived for covered violations, increasing ability to obtain compensation and deterrence against misconduct.
Implementing rapid notification windows, continuous responsiveness, expanded reporting, investigations, and long record retention will impose significant staffing, training, and administrative costs on ICE/DHS, contractors, hospitals, and ultimately taxpayers.
Very large statutory fines and minimum-per-day damages (and steep contractor civil penalties) create major financial exposure that could drive up contract prices, reduce the pool of willing contractors, and shift costs to taxpayers or reduce available services.
Collecting contact, faith, and advance-directive data plus fast public disclosures risks exposing sensitive medical, identity, or investigative information if not carefully protected and redacted, harming privacy and possibly complicating investigations.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Requires ICE and all detention facilities to collect emergency-contact info and notify next-of-kin rapidly for deaths and serious illness, with penalties and a private right to sue.
Official title: To establish Federal policies and procedures to notify the next-of-kin or other emergency contact upon the death, serious illness, serious injury, or hospitalization of an individual in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and for other purposes.
Introduced August 13, 2026 by Ritchie Torres · Last progress August 13, 2026
Requires the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to collect and maintain emergency contact information for people in ICE custody and to notify those contacts quickly after a covered death or serious illness/injury. It requires standardized intake forms, language access, timely notification deadlines, contract compliance for all detention facilities, civil penalties for contractor failures, public reporting, oversight audits, and a private right of action with statutory damages. Also requires prompt public and congressional notice of each covered death, routine audits and complaint mechanisms, retention of records, and creation of a Family Notification Fund funded by contractor penalties; the law must be implemented within 180 days and contains a severability clause and a prohibition on authorizing new funds.