ICE Detainee Loses Eye at Pahrump Facility After Denied Psychiatric Medication

A civil lawsuit filed in the 8th Judicial District Court in Clark County alleges that Jose Braulio Sedano Navarro, a 31-year-old legal permanent resident diagnosed with schizophrenia, permanently lost his eye while detained at the Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump after facility staff repeatedly failed to provide his antipsychotic medication.

Navarro was placed in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in early June 2025. According to the lawsuit, he immediately began asking staff for his antipsychotic medication, warning them that he was hearing voices and hallucinating about demons. Those warnings went unheeded. The suit alleges that nurses repeatedly ignored or failed to log his escalating mental health complaints, and that a facility doctor named as a defendant failed to provide a proper substitution for his long-acting injectable medicine.

In late August 2025, Navarro attempted suicide. The lawsuit states that following the attempt, the facility's mental health counselor was not notified and Navarro was not transferred to a hospital. Two days later, during a psychotic episode, Navarro removed his own eye. He was airlifted to University Medical Center in Las Vegas, where his vision could not be recovered. He is now permanently disfigured.

The lawsuit seeks damages for "pain, suffering, and all other allowable damages." Neither ICE nor the Nevada Southern Detention Center has publicly responded to the allegations.

Editor's note: This story discusses suicide and self-mutilation. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.