Arizona ICE detainee alive after suicide attempt; still no ICE response

Alexander Hernández, 45, said he was hospitalized April 28 after guards found him unconscious in his cell , he wrote in a Friday message to an Arizona Daily Star reporter. He said on the night he tried to hurt himself, he was "delirious" with a fever and he doesn't remember much about what happened.

He said he woke up in a hospital the afternoon of April 28, and that the care he received there "helped me beyond measure." 

"Thank God I'm OK," he wrote in Spanish. "They wouldn't let me leave (the hospital) because of the fever, until it went down after three days in the hospital. Imagine what I went through here waiting for medical attention" at Eloy.

Hernández had told the Star last month that he was having liver problems due to taking so much ibuprofen for his debilitating back pain during his eight months at Eloy.

At the hospital, doctors confirmed "my liver is still inflamed due to the mismanagement and improper administration of medication by the doctors here" in Eloy, Hernández wrote Friday, using a prison-messaging application.  

Eloy is owned and operated by CoreCivic, a private, for-profit prison company. Medical and mental health care at Eloy is handled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's medical arm, ICE Health Services Corps.

ICE has not responded to the Star's April 29 questions on Hernández's health status and his medical concerns.

Hernández and several Eloy detainees told the Star last month that Hernández had become desperate in late April, after Eloy staff took away the wheelchair he'd relied on since December. Severe back pain had made it nearly impossible for Hernández to get around the detention facility, where he's been detained since August 2025. 

Hernández said he finally went to Eloy's medical unit April 25, with the help of a friend, and told staff he wouldn't leave until he received emergency care for his back pain, which was at a level "10."

Instead of getting help, he was sent to solitary confinement, he told the Star, in messages sent from a solitary cell. Two days later, after sending worrying messages to his family and the Star, Hernández attempted suicide.

In the 10 days that followed, Hernández's family was desperate for information on Hernández's condition.

Hernández said Friday that being sent to solitary confinement as punishment for misbehavior could be justified. But being isolated for requesting medical help is an "injustice," he said.

"What's worse is when you're asking for help with your health, they ignore you, and you end up in a place (solitary) against your will," he wrote. "I think that's what led to things getting out of control for me. Even more when I looked around and had no one to ask for help. ... What they do here every day is an injustice, not just to me. There are many more."

ICE still has shared no information with Hernández's family about his status. They were calling "everywhere" trying to find out if Hernández was still alive, after receiving his last messages at the end of April, his 24-year-old son, Dasnel, told the Star.

The family only learned Hernández had been hospitalized after his attorney showed up at Eloy April 29 for a "wellness check," immigration attorney Pattilyn Bermudez Solano told the Star.

The Star asked May 4 if reports that ICE has not paid its third-party medical contractors since October 2025 could explain inadequate medical care at Eloy claimed by Hernández. ICE did not respond.

Popular Information first reported last year that ICE had stopped paying its off-site medical contractors, after abruptly terminating its long-running contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which had long handled claims processing for ICE.

ICE Health Services Corps handles medical care at 18 detention facilities, including Eloy, with a budget of $421 million in fiscal year 2024.

Those third-party reimbursements were supposed to start being processed again in April. But ICE's new private claims administrator, Acentra Health, updated its website recently to say claims would be processed sometime in the second quarter of 2026, between April and June, Popular Information reported.

A spokeswoman for Acentra initially said the company would respond to the Star's questions on the payment delays. But the spokeswoman later referred to Star's questions to ICE, which has not responded.

"Our client prefers you speak directly with them for any information on this topic or with any further questions," said Lindsey Rodarmer, Acentra public relations manager, in a May 6 email. "... We must follow their process."

Hernández's family said it's been an enormous relief to finally hear from him, after 10 days of wondering.

"It was very stressful not getting any news about him," said Hernández's significant other, who asked the Star not to publish her name. "We were already thinking the worst."