ICE detainee suicides hit record pace amid care failures, AP finds

The surge in detainee suicides has exposed a breakdown in mental-health monitoring inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where deaths by self-harm have climbed faster than the detention system itself. A review of ICE data, autopsy reports, coroner’s rulings and police records shows at least 10 detainees have died by suicide since January 2025, all of them men, with seven of those deaths classified since October.

That pace is unprecedented in the agency’s two-decade history. ICE has typically recorded only one, or no, suicide deaths in a year, yet the recent toll already makes this the deadliest fiscal year on record for suicide inside ICE custody. The deaths now account for nearly 20% of the 51 people who have died in ICE custody since January 2025, even as the detained population has grown sharply under President Donald Trump’s intensified arrest and deportation push.

One of the clearest warning signs came in Missouri. Brayan Rayo Garzon, a 27-year-old Colombian national, died by suicide in April 2025 after being held in isolation at Phelps County Jail in Rolla. Records show he was battling COVID-19 symptoms, had asked for mental-health treatment and was denied his nightly call to his mother. Medical screening had also noted health concerns, including labored breathing and anxiety, and he denied suicidal thoughts, self-harm, hopelessness and depression.

ICE’s own detention standards say staff responsible for supervising detainees must receive suicide-prevention training during orientation and at least annually. The policy also says clinically suicidal detainees should receive preventive supervision, treatment and therapeutic follow-up. The pattern of deaths suggests those safeguards are not preventing crises from turning fatal, particularly in local jails that hold ICE detainees far from family and legal support.

Department of Homeland Security acting assistant secretary Lauren Bies defended the agency’s response, saying suicide deaths in ICE custody remain “extremely rare.” But public-health officials and jail experts say the recent spike points to failures in care and oversight inside a system stretched by aggressive enforcement and rising detention levels. The question now is not just how many people have died, but why repeated warnings inside the system did not trigger stronger intervention sooner.