List of deaths in ICE detention
| Part of a series on the |
| Immigration policy of the second Trump administration |
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This is a chronological list of deaths in United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. It is based mainly on US federal government records which are in the public domain. The DHS Appropriations Bill (2018) requires ICE to make public all reports regarding in custody deaths within 90 days. Some deaths are also documented in the media.
2025 had the highest number of deaths since 2004, and December 2025 was the deadliest month on record.
Some commentators have expressed concerns about the truthfulness of reporting, or that information is being concealed by taking steps to avoid the necessity of reporting, for example:
... ICE regularly "releases" individuals from ICE custody shortly before death, which allows them to avoid counting those individuals official reports. In October 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against ICE for not disclosing these deaths. Similar cases were exposed when advocates heard from other detained individuals about someone who was rushed to a hospital from detention, where they later died. When these deaths were not reported by ICE, journalists and advocates had to investigate.
In New Mexico, a transgender asylum-seeker was given parole documents to sign while in a hospital bed after having sought and been denied medical care at the Otero Processing Center over several weeks. She died four days later, never leaving the hospital. Other cases included in the ACLU lawsuit, include men who were "released" from ICE detention while hospitalized and in a coma.
During the second presidency of Donald Trump, ICE started to release details of detainee deaths in narrative style at their newsroom, within two business days. Instead of the standard titles used in detainee death reports for example "Detainee Death Report: AVELLENEDA-Delgado, Abelardo" these reports use titles such as "Illegal alien in ICE custody passes away at California hospital" or "Career criminal, illegal alien in ICE custody passes away at local hospital", and are in a less detailed and more narrative style using the euphemism "passes away" rather than referring to death. As a technical matter, the federal government is incapable of dealing with diacritics, which are stripped from names appearing in government records.