Vasenin v. Mullin

As part of its cruel, senseless mass deportation program, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracted with the State of Indiana in 2025 to house immigrants at a state penitentiary called Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana. . We represent three immigrants on behalf of a proposed class of other immigrants detained there by ICE The Department of Homeland Security glibly named Miami Correctional the “Speedway Slammer,” and it is now one of the largest and deadliest immigration detention centers in the Midwest.

Miami Correctional has long been problematic, with portions of the facility (now being used for immigration detention) being closed because of their dangerous conditions. An Indiana Department of Corrections official acknowledged as much, testifying that “we’ve struggled with the ability to keep those incarcerated [at Miami Correctional] safe.”

The immigrants held at Miami Correctional are being denied adequate medical care, live under constant threat of prolonged solitary confinement without justification, are subjected to racist and xenophobic abuse, and are forced to endure filthy conditions and inadequate access to food, water, clothing, essential medications, and hygiene items. They are housed in two-person cells measuring just five by eleven feet, each containing a metal sink and toilet.

One of the lead plaintiffs has been treated for epilepsy for years but is being denied proper medication, and another lead plaintiff was denied mental health care for weeks. These accounts echo other stories involving medical neglect at Miami Correctional and a report exposing widespread failures in medical care at the facility.

The conditions being experienced by immigrants detained at Miami Correctional include:

• Inadequate health care – including dangerous understaffing, inadequate health screenings, delays and denials of urgently needed medications and treatment, and ineffective emergency response.
• The use of abusive punishment – including forcing people into solitary confinement for 23 and 24 hours each day, with little or no justification, use of force by staff without accountability and consequences, and untrained staff who degrade immigrants being held at the facility with racial and xenophobic slurs, including calling them a “plague.”
• Inhumane conditions – including inadequate and unhealthy food, lack of access to water, inadequate clothing and shoes (especially during winter), inability to access hygiene items and little or no access to recreation. The conditions are described as “filthy” in most parts of the facility.

We are asking the court to order federal and state government officials to stop their mistreatment, provide of the immigrants detained with constitutionally adequate care, and to take immediate steps to protect the people detained by ICE at Miami Correctional.

We are joined in this litigation by lawyers from the ACLU of Indiana, MacArthur Justice Center, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and the Dunn Issaacson Rhee law firm.