Indiana ICE Detention Lawsuit Targets Prison Conditions

Three ICE detainees held at an Indiana state prison have filed a class action asking a federal court to rule that conditions there punish people who are being held only for civil immigration cases.

An Indiana ICE detention lawsuit filed Oct. 29 asks a federal judge in South Bend to declare that medical care and confinement conditions at the Miami Correctional Facility violate the Constitution’s due process protections for civil detainees. The case, Vasenin v. Mullin, was brought on behalf of three named detainees and everyone ICE holds or will hold at the prison, which Indiana’s Department of Correction runs under a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Defendants include Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, acting ICE Director David Venturella, the prison’s interim warden and Indiana Correction Commissioner Lloyd Arnold.

The case matters now because the prison, nicknamed the “Speedway Slammer,” is a leading test of ICE’s reliance on state prisons for detention space. A ruling against the arrangement would bind both a federal agency and a state that, according to the complaint, appropriated $15.79 million for ICE-related upgrades.

What the detainees allege at Miami Correctional

The ACLU of Indiana, the ACLU of Illinois and the National Immigrant Justice Center are among the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Their allegations, untested in court, center on three people:

Sergei Vasenin, Ukrainian-born and from Russia, says he spent about nine weeks in segregation, confined up to 23 to 24 hours a day.
Kemoye Muslar, from Jamaica, says he was arrested in November 2025 at a green card biometrics appointment and has been held through lockdowns of up to 10 days, including one in which his cell flooded with sewage for three days.
Cynthia Acevedo, from Guatemala, says she has had epilepsy for more than 30 years and began having multiple seizures a week after the prison switched her to a less effective medication.

Two ICE detainees, Lorth Sim, 59, and Tuan Van Bui, 55, have died at the facility this year, the Associated Press reported; ICE told Rep. André Carson in July that both deaths were under investigation. DHS, ICE and the Indiana Department of Correction did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the AP and WFYI Public Media.

The numbers behind the contract

The best data comes from ICE itself. In its July 23 letter to Carson, the agency said Miami Correctional maintains 1,000 beds for ICE, with an average daily population of 463 and an average stay of 56.3 days as of April 19, 2026. From April 1 to 22, the facility administered 3,242 doses of medication. ICE also listed 804 missed doses in that period: 750 because detainees “refused to come to the pill line,” 44 because the medication was not available and 10 for other reasons, such as court appearances. The agency told Carson that all detainees receive timely care under ICE’s national detention standards.

That breakdown is likely to be contested: ICE attributes most missed doses to refusals, while the plaintiffs describe a medical operation too thin to deliver care. The complaint says the intergovernmental service agreement, dated Sept. 30, 2025, runs through Sept. 29, 2027, and pays $291.24 per detainee per day, compared with $75 a day for a state prisoner. It quotes Arnold telling lawmakers, “[w]e wouldn’t be doing it if there was not a built-in profit.” It also cites Indianapolis Star reporting that the medical contractor, Centurion, which is not a defendant, had filled 54 percent of required immigration-detention medical positions as of June.

Why a civil detainee standard could decide the case

The legal theory rests on the line between civil detention and criminal punishment. Because immigration detention is civil, detainees may not be punished at all, a principle the complaint ties to the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Youngberg v. Romeo. Federal officials are sued under the Fifth Amendment, state officials under the Fourteenth through 42 U.S.C. 1983.

Venue may help the plaintiffs. Since its 2018 ruling in Miranda v. County of Lake, the Seventh Circuit, which covers Indiana, has judged pretrial detainees’ medical-care claims by an objective reasonableness test rather than the tougher deliberate-indifference standard convicted prisoners must meet, and civil immigration detainees are likely to be measured at least that favorably. The government is likely to answer that ICE standards and the Indiana contract already govern care and that isolated lapses do not prove punishment. The open question is whether the judge certifies a facility-wide class, turning individual grievances into a systemic case.

The class action follows individual ACLU of Indiana suits filed in July over one detainee’s care at the same prison, WSBT reported, and joins other recent detention fights, from the ICE detainee locator lawsuit in Boston to the Otay Mesa detainee death and an Indiana man claiming U.S. citizenship in ICE custody.

A question families are asking

Will the Miami Correctional lawsuit get ICE detainees released?

Not directly. The complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, a ruling that conditions are unconstitutional and an order requiring officials to fix them, not release. Release from ICE custody usually runs through a bond hearing or a habeas petition in an individual case; see how immigration bond works.

What to watch next in the Indiana ICE detention lawsuit

Motions for a preliminary injunction and class certification, and how fast the court sets hearings.
The federal defendants’ response, generally due 60 days after service under the federal rules.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds an LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Diego and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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