As of April 22, 2026, at least 17 people have reportedly died in ICE custody this year. In 2025, ICE reported 33 detainee deaths, the highest total in more than two decades. As of early April, the agency continues to hold over 60,000 immigrants in detention. The spectacle of so-called enforcement—the raids, the numbers, the performance of control—requires reducing people to props, human beings to bodies. More people detained means more people will die. At this pace we can expect the 2026 death toll to break last year’s record.
Numbers alone cannot hold the weight of grief or the significance of the lives lost. The people who have died in immigration custody had names, had friends and family who loved them; they woke in the mornings and hoped and slept at night and dreamed. A cage built by cruel policy and indifference robbed them of those hopes and dreams, and robbed their loved ones of even the chance to say goodbye. Their lives mattered and their deaths matter, too.
A society’s character is revealed by who it decides does not count. Every bureaucratic system that has ever committed atrocity has relied on the same quiet mechanism: the removal of personhood before the removal of life. Call them aliens. Strip their names of their diacritics. Issue a press release two days later that says they “passed away.” Do not say: We caged them; We denied them care; We turned our backs as they died.
At the National Immigration Project, these individuals will not be forgotten. We will keep pushing this administration, just as we have spent decades fighting the legal architecture that makes these deaths possible—the very existence of “detention,” inadequate medical care, facilities that pass inspection while people die inside them. We provide legal resources and training to practitioners fighting to free people from these hell holes every day. We will not let up. Lives are literally at stake, the lives of more than 60,000 people still held in detention, and the lives of people who will be taken in the coming days, weeks, and months.
We publish this accounting as an act of witness. These names deserve to exist somewhere beyond a government death report that ignores their full humanity. We stand firmly in solidarity with the families and friends of the deceased and anyone who opposes this deadly regime.
For an up-to-date listing, please visit the Detention Watch Network tracker.
Geraldo Lunas Campos · Age 55 · Cuba · January 3, 2026
Camp East Montana, Ft. Bliss, TX
Death ruled homicide by asphyxia by the El Paso County Medical Examiner. Witnesses reported guards choked him as he said he couldn't breathe. ICE initially described his death as a suicide attempt gone wrong, then changed its account.
Luis Gustavo Nuñez Caceres · Age 42 · Honduras · January 5, 2026
Joe Corley Processing Center, Conroe, TX
Died of congestive heart failure at HCA Healthcare in Conroe, TX.
Luis Beltrán Yañez-Cruz · Age 68 · Honduras · January 6, 2026
Imperial Regional Detention Facility, Calexico, CA
Hospitalized with chest pains; died at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Indio, CA.
Parady La · Age 46 · Cambodia · January 9, 2026
Detained in Pennsylvania
Found unresponsive in his cell; transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia where he ultimately died of brain and organ failure.
Victor Manuel Díaz · Age 36 · Nicaragua · January 14, 2026
Camp East Montana, El Paso, TX
Found unconscious in his room. ICE reported presumed suicide; his family disputes this account. Arrested in Minneapolis eight days before his death.
Heber Sánchez Domínguez · Age 34 · Mexico · January 14, 2026
Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility, Lovejoy, GA
Found hanging by the neck and unresponsive in his cell seven days after being taken into ICE custody following an arrest for driving without a license. Mexico's Consulate General requested an investigation.
Lorth Sim · Age 59 · Cambodia · February 16, 2026
Miami Correctional Facility, Bunker Hill, IN
Found unresponsive in his cell.
Jairo García-Hernández · Age 27 · Guatemala · February 16, 2026
Larkin Community Hospital Behavioral Health Center, Hollywood, FL
More than a year after he was taken into custody, he collapsed unexpectedly and died, according to ICE.
Alberto Gutiérrez Reyes · Age 48 · Mexico · February 27, 2026
Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Adelanto, CA
Admitted to Victor Valley Global Medical Center for chest pain and shortness of breath, where he became unresponsive and died on February 27. Los Angeles City Council member Eunisses Hernandez said in a statement that her office had been in touch with his family and that he had been denied medical care while in ICE custody.
Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi · Age 59 · Iran · March 1, 2026
Louisiana ICE Processing Center, Angola, LA
Despite several chronic health conditions, he remained detained until he suffered cardiac arrest at a Mississippi hospital.
Emmanuel Cleeford Damas · Age 56 · Haiti · March 2, 2026
Florence Correctional Center, Florence, AZ
Hospitalized after reporting shortness of breath. Transferred to a Phoenix hospital and placed in the intensive care unit where he died of causes unknown, according to ICE. His family reported he died due to an untreated toothache and related infection.
Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal · Age 41 · Afghanistan · March 14, 2026
Dallas Field Office Holding Room, Dallas, TX
Previously worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Died less than 24 hours after being detained. Cause of death is still unclear.
Royer Pérez Jiménez · Age 19 · Mexico · March 16, 2026
Glades County Detention Center, Moore Haven, FL
Death was a presumed suicide, according to ICE. Official cause of death is still under investigation.
José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano · Age 52 · Mexico · March 25, 2026
Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Adelanto, CA
Found unresponsive in his bunk. Cause of death has not been determined.
Tuan Van Bui · Age 55 · Vietnam · April 1, 2026
Miami Correctional Facility, Bunker Hill, IN
Found unresponsive and declared dead at the scene. Cause of death remains under investigation.
Alejandro Cabrera Clemente · Age 49 · Mexico · April 11, 2026
Winn Correctional Center, Winnfield, LA
Found unresponsive at the detention center. Taken to local hospital where he was declared dead. The agency has not released his cause of death.
Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt · Age 27 · Cuba · April 12, 2026
Federal Detention Center, Miami, FL
Found in his cell in what appeared to be a suicide attempt, according to ICE officials. Official cause of death is still being investigated.