ICE narrows death details as immigrant custody deaths surge to record highs

ICE says a death in custody is a “significant cause for concern,” and its own rules require medical, dental and mental health care from the moment detainees arrive. The agency also says it must notify next of kin, consulates, Congress, DHS stakeholders and the public, then post a news release within two business days.

That formal promise matters because the toll has climbed fast. The first 14 months of Donald Trump’s second term were the deadliest recent stretch for the federal detention system except for 2020, with 45 people dead in government custody by March 29 and the detention population recently topping 70,000. In ICE custody alone, at least 48 people died after Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025, including 33 deaths in 2025, the highest annual total since ICE was created in 2003. By March 30, 2026, 14 people had died in ICE custody, and by early April the count had reached at least 15.

The sharper problem is what the public is not seeing. ICE’s 2021 directive says deaths should be reported “timely, accurately, appropriately, and with sufficient detail.” ICE also says Congress’s 2018 appropriations law requires public release of all in-custody death reports within 90 days. Yet the details arriving in public are narrow enough that families, lawyers, watchdogs and lawmakers are left piecing together deaths from fragments instead of full explanations.

That gap is especially consequential because many of the deaths appear to involve medical failures. Among 48 cases reviewed in one recent accounting, at least 17 involved delayed or failed treatment that doctors said might have saved lives. The cases included Ismael Ayala-Uribe, whose severe abscess was allegedly not promptly examined, and Maksym Chernyak, whose seizure-like medical emergency was reportedly met with delay. Emmanuel Damas died after his brother said he had complained for about two weeks of a toothache. Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano was found unconscious and unresponsive at Adelanto ICE Processing Center with medical issues including diabetes.

The agency says its Office of Professional Responsibility reviews the circumstances surrounding each death. DHS’s Office of Inspector General also reviewed ICE and Border Patrol deaths in custody during fiscal year 2021 after congressional direction, examining whether systemic factors, policies or processes played a role. But as the death toll rises, the public record is getting less complete, leaving Congress and the public to judge a system that says it is transparent while releasing fewer of the facts needed to test that claim.