Washington DC - Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, the rate of migrant deaths in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention camps has more than doubled.
Since Trump launched his brutal mass deportation campaign more than a year ago, at least 50 people have died while in ICE detention – due to health complications, violence, and suicide.
According to data analyzed by Reuters, between 2009 and 2024, ICE facilities generally had one death per every 3,848 people detained annually. This rate has now more than doubled, to one death in every 1,630 people detained.
ICE has officially reported 50 deaths, though the validity of its numbers is questionable, especially after recent changes to the way the agency reports migrant deaths. Out of those, 21 were discovered after the person was already diseased or unresponsive.
Ten of those deaths were ultimately ruled as suicides, raising concerns about the lack of mental health oversight in many of these facilities.
While Reuters stressed that the deaths don't necessarily stem from neglect or abuse, experts said rising death rates could indicate a widespread problem with medical care and supervision.
Chanelle Diaz, an assistant professor of medicine at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, said ICE is causing a "spike in preventable deaths" by purposefully imprisoning medically vulnerable people.
ICE has repeatedly denied such claims. Spokesperson Lauren Bis told Reuters that "comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay."
Skyrocketing deaths come amid claims of negligence and abuse
The deaths of migrants in ICE detention has become a common theme throughout Trump's second term, and made worse by serious accusations of not only negligence within the camps but of violence and abuse as well.
A report released by the Department of Homeland Security's own internal watchdog described violent incidents in a Louisiana detention camp. In one case, an officer aggressively put a migrant into a chokehold.
One particularly notorious example saw a 55-year-old Cuban man killed by asphyxiation in ICE's El Paso facility. Numerous witnesses came forward to accuse a guard of choking the man to death. The agency then reportedly tried to have those same witnesses' deportations sped up.
On Tuesday, ICE confirmed that it has closed the notorious Alligator Alcatraz camp in Florida. The move comes after the facility became the center of allegations of serious human rights abuses and the use of CIA torture techniques against people detained there.
Mexico's government has even been forced to respond after more than a dozen of its citizens were either killed in detention, or by ICE officers in the field. It has got to the point where Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has condemned the treatment of her country's citizens by ICE as "unacceptable" and called out the conditions within ICE camps as "incompatible with human rights standards and the protection of life."
"I can't say enough wonderful things about the children and families whose loved ones are inside," an emotional Ms. Rachel wrote on Instagram after visiting the families of those held in Newark's Delaney Hall ICE detention camp last week.
"I can't say enough about how this cruelty is harming and traumatizing precious children who should get to just be kids," she said.
The camp has become the center for protests against ICE and its treatment of migrants in New Jersey. The state's Governor Mikie Sherrill last week expressed anger at the agency's refusal for her to conduct oversight.
"I was not allowed to meet or speak directly with the detainees, which continues to raise serious questions about the real conditions of the facility and the treatment of those held there," Sherrill said.
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