H.R. 10107 — Families Deserve to Know Act

This section directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to implement, within 180 days of enactment, policies and procedures requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to notify an individual’s designated emergency contacts within 12 hours of a covered death or serious illness or injury. It requires collection of emergency contact information at intake, updates at least every 90 days, language access, standardized forms, and detailed disclosures on circumstances, cause, facility, and medical status, with concurrent notice to counsel of record.

This section applies the requirements of this Act to every covered death, including those during or at the conclusion of a serious illness or injury in custody and those occurring within 30 days after release from custody. It requires every contract, subcontract, and intergovernmental agreement for a covered facility to include compliance and immediate reporting of deaths or serious medical events as material terms, imposes civil penalties of $100,000 per day for each unmade notification, mandates contract termination and 3-year debarment after two failures at the same facility in any 12-month period, prohibits waiver of penalties, and establishes the Family Notification Fund to receive penalties and pay damages awards under section 6.

This section requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to notify the appropriate congressional committees within 24 hours and publish a public notice on a DHS website within 2 business days after a covered death. It further requires a detailed death report, including medical care provided and a timeline of events, to be completed and published within 90 days. The section mandates review of each death by the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility or an equivalent office, with results shared with the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the DHS Inspector General. It also directs semiannual reports to Congress on deaths, notification delays, medical releases from custody, and related complaints, and requires retention of all records for at least 10 years.

This section directs the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to audit compliance with the Act within one year of enactment and biennially thereafter, and to publish the results with any recommendations for corrective action. It also requires the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to establish a complaint mechanism for family members, emergency contacts, or representatives of individuals in custody and to report annually to Congress on complaints received and their resolution.

This section authorizes individuals in custody, or their emergency contacts or estate representatives, to sue the United States, contractors, or covered facility operators in federal district court for violations of this Act. It requires courts to award prevailing plaintiffs actual damages or at least $100,000 in statutory damages per violation, punitive damages for willful violations by non-federal defendants, declaratory and injunctive relief, and attorney fees, treats each day without required notification as a separate violation, and waives sovereign immunity.

This section prohibits construing the Act to create legal or financial obligations for next-of-kin or emergency contacts, confer immigration status or benefits, discourage releases from custody, alter federal medical privacy protections, displace the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013, or authorize detention. It requires the Act to be implemented with existing Department of Homeland Security funds and includes a severability clause.

This section defines terms for the Act, including "covered death" as the death of an individual in ICE custody or within 30 days after release when ICE knows or reasonably should know of the death; "covered facility" as any ICE detention site; "in custody" as detention at a covered facility, transport by ICE, or related medical treatment; and "serious illness or serious injury" as specified medical events such as imminent death without treatment, hospital admission, or cardiac arrest.