Update on Ihsanullah

Some new details Dec 3, 2025

Read my original Substack on this case: J4A Week 10: The Story of Ihsanullah

Peter Currier ran another article The Lowell Sun about Ihsanullah’s case on Nov 16^th. That article included some important new details.

Ihsanullah was only in Burlington for about an hour before being transferred to Rhode Island. However, Currier reports that: “In that short time, though, Garay said he was asked by ICE officials for proof that he has brain cancer, which he was able to show them through his MyChart app when they brought him his phone, which they had confiscated along with his ID and other belongings. When the ICE officials saw the medical documents, Garay said they seemed shocked he was telling the truth.”

Ihsanullah told me at Justice 4 All, “I thought when I showed them in MyChart, they would let me go.” I still can’t believe that someone could look at proof of his condition and not take action to get him out of detention.

Abdul, Me, Ihsanullah at Justice 4 All, Thursday November 6, 2025

The Sun article also reports, “While still in Burlington, Garay said he suffered a couple medical episodes which lasted about two minutes, though he was unsure whether these were seizures or something else stemming from his brain cancer.”

They also saw the physical signs of his condition and decided to continue to detain him.

He then spent 28 days in Rhode Island, where he continued to have similar episodes nearly nightly. Recall that the excuse given for his subsequent transfer to Georgia was so that he would have better access to medical care. Was he provided such medical care? No.

“They have no neurosurgeon, they have no oncologist, they have no neurologist, nothing,” said Garay.

I was glad to read that he is now doing better and that his treatment has restarted at the Boston Medical Center, but he still faces another hearing to determine his immigration case.

After being released on bond in Georgia, police brought him to the Airport, where he was denied boarding because ICE never gave him back his ID. Abdul had called the police to help. They brought Ihsanullah to the bus station in Jacksonville, Florida.

These details in The Sun’s article clarified some confusion. Abdul had mentioned Florida to me in an Email, but The Sun has is detention as being in Georgia. The answer is pretty simple. If you Google ICE Detention Center in Georgia, you quickly get the Folkston ICE Processing Center, which is in Southeastern Georgia. The nearest major city is Jacksonville, FL.

Are the conditions better in Folkston? I wouldn’t say so, per the article I found, titled “They want to kill me:’ Inside the Folkston ICE Processing Center expansion.”

The facility is operated by the GEO Group, a private prison company. It is currently undergoing an expansion from 1,118 beds to 2,986 at a cost of $47M, which will make it the one of the largest ICE detention centers. A couple of key excerpts from that article follow:

“Companies like GEO Group donated millions of dollars so that they could reap the rewards. Anyone could go and look at the stock prices on November 5th—how they skyrocket,” Westcott said. “They were clearly planning on major expansions that they had coordinated well before the implementation of this administration and they’re following through on that.”

“This place is worse than prison,” Lindsay said. “The shower floors are caved in, leaving standing water mixed with people’s feces, pubic hair, and spit. All of the food is expired. What they give us is always years old—like from 2022. The food is also inedible. All the chicken boxes the staff uses for our meals say ‘Not for human consumption.’”

The Folkston ICE Processing Center in Charlton County, Georgia (Nolan Huber)

Sources:

afghan-man-living-in-lowell-speaks-about-ice-detention, The Lowell Sun, Peter Currier, Nov 16, 2025

inside-folkston-ice-processing-center, Atlanta Community, Press Collective, Layla Mar, Aug 8, 2025