MEDICAL NEGLECT • CORECIVIC
From planning a free community health fair to crawling across a filthy floor in a CoreCivic facility
Born with severe disabilities, Rodney Taylor came to the United States on a medical visa at two years old. Now the beloved Snellville barber is fighting to survive in a facility that has repeatedly failed to meet his needs.
A Year Inside Stewart Detention Facility
Despite undergoing 16 surgeries throughout his life, including for the amputation of both of his legs, Rodney Taylor has counted himself fortunate.
“I got a lot of help when I got to this country with my disability and everything, so I just felt like I had to give back to people,” he told CNN last March. “I try to do good. I try to do stuff for my community. Help people out.”
In early 2025, he was planning a health fair for his Sneville, Georgia neighbors. A flyer posted at the barbershop — where one of his regular customers described her time in his chair as “free therapy” — promoted the event, where those in need could get free haircuts, health screenings, and other resources.
But his plans were interrupted when he was unexpectedly detained one morning by ICE officers who surrounded his house as his then-fiancée, Mildred, was pulling out of their driveway to take her children to school. Despite a pending green card application and valid work authorization, officials said Taylor should be deported due to a burglary he was convicted of as a teenager — for which he was later pardoned by the state of Georgia.
Since then, Rodney has been held in Lumpkin, Georgia at CoreCivic's Stewart Detention Facility, which produces a volume of 911 calls so high that it has sometimes overwhelmed the local emergency system, The Intercept reported in December.
“The facility cannot accommodate me at all. So I've been deteriorating in here.”
From his arrival, it was clear that CoreCivic was not going to provide the appropriate medical care to meet Rodney's needs. He had been days away from getting new prosthetics when was detained, so the prosthetics he was using were already too tight. Then CoreCivic gave him shoes that didn't fit those prosthetics.
Trying to walk on them “felt like walking on concrete on my knees,” he told The Guardian last November.
He was later provided with a new set of prosthetic legs that need to be charged for eight hours a day, an apparently impossible feat inside of Stewart. Without a full charge, the batteries die and the legs don't bend, resulting in even more pain in Rodney's hips.
Even basic hygiene tasks are sometimes impossible. At one point, Rodney went six days without taking shower. When CoreCivic — which saw record revenues of $2.2 billion in 2025 — finally provided a shower stool for him, he still had to crawl across a shower floor covered in mold, feces, and bodily fluids to use it.
This February, 21 members of Congress sent a letter to the Homeland Security Secretary and the Acting Director of ICE decrying Rodney's treatment, writing, “These conditions and his treatment are totally unacceptable.”
The System Enabling Mistreatment
Rodney's experience is about more than immigration policy. His is one of countless stories of medical neglect to emerge from dozens of facilities run by CoreCivic. These allegations go back to at least the late 1980s, when the company settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a young woman who died due to complications from an ectopic pregnancy — after being left screaming in her prison cell for nearly 12 hours before being transported to the hospital.
Despite decades of credible allegations of medical neglect and authorities' own findings of repeated failures, CoreCivic continues to receive state and federal contracts — and hundreds of millions of dollars in financing from the banks that are still willing to risk their reputations doing business with them.
CITIZENS BANK'S ROLE
Citizens Financial Group's subsidiaries, including Citizens Bank, have helped finance CoreCivic since at least 2012.
In 2019, eight major U.S. banks pledged to cut ties with CoreCivic and GEO Group. Citizens chose to stay the course.
Today the company plays an expanded role in the industry, now also acting as a key partner to CoreCivic's main competitor, GEO Group. In the past year alone, Citizens has helped GEO grow its credit line by over $200 million.
While the for-profit prison companies Citizens is backing hurt our neighbors, the bank continues to tout its commitment to fostering strong communities.
More of our neighbors' stories
“Medical personnel merely took her to a small room, and left her bleeding alone...”
CoreCivic medical staff repeatedly delayed care for Lucia, who was in her first trimester of pregnancy and having a miscarriage. They finally sent her, in shackles, to a hospital —but only after she had lost enough blood to need a transfusion.
“I want to get out and eat pizza and bananas. I really want to go to school. I miss my friends from school.”
Thousands of children have been put in ICE detention since 2025. Five have been held for more than nine months at a CoreCivic facility in Texas, where they describe medical neglect, inedible food, and trauma.
