Record deaths in immigration detention, and the dismantling of the oversight that would examine them

Fifty-two deaths in ICE custody over 500 days, against 11 in 2024. One death was ruled a homicide by a medical examiner after agents held a man down until he stopped breathing. The detained population rose past 71,000. Oversight offices including the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties lost hundreds of staff; the Office of Detention Oversight ceased work during the shutdown. Courts ordered restoration of the oversight offices and of unannounced congressional visits.

Deaths in ICE custody rose from 11 in 2024 to 33 in 2025, the highest annual figure in over two decades. A joint analysis by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights counted 52 deaths in the 500 days from January 20, 2025 to June 4, 2026, and found the mortality rate more than doubled from the start of the second term, reaching nearly four times the rate under the Biden administration and more than two and a half times that of the first Trump administration, exceeding even the rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The increase outpaced the growth in the detained population, which rose to a record above 71,000. One death was ruled a homicide: agents held 55-year-old Campos Lunas down until he stopped breathing, in what an ICE report described as an intervention to prevent self-harm.

Detainees and their families described care that did not come. A 75-year-old man with heart disease told his former partner he was having chest pains and could not get his medication; he died three weeks after his arrest. A 27-year-old man who died by suicide had a mental health appointment rescheduled twice, and was found unresponsive before it occurred. Twenty-two senators wrote to Noem and Lyons that ICE had not paid third-party medical providers since October 2025, allegedly leading to denials of care, and that ICE's own auditors had found medical contractors failing to complete charts and intake screenings at a facility where three people died in just over a month. ICE says comprehensive medical care is provided from arrival onward, and that many detainees had not received reliable treatment before entering custody.

The oversight that would examine these deaths was reduced at the same time. The DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, one of the offices that investigated detainee deaths, saw hundreds of staff cuts; during the government shutdown the Office of Detention Oversight stopped working entirely. A court order required the administration to restore the DHS oversight offices, and a federal court blocked as unlawful a policy requiring members of Congress to give seven days notice before visiting detention facilities. The senators wrote that DHS had responded to deaths in its custody by emphasizing the deceased's immigration status and alleged wrongdoing rather than the circumstances of the death.

Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, a 41-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, was arrested by ICE in Dallas on March 13, 2026 and died at Parkland Hospital the next morning, after one day in custody. He had reported no medical history at intake. The Dallas County medical examiner ruled the death an accident, from anaphylaxis complicating acute asthma, with methamphetamine and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (and a history of smoking) as contributing causes.

Documented; ICE's own death reporting, a joint Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights analysis, congressional letters, and court orders

A federal court blocked the policy requiring members of Congress to give seven days notice before detention visits; a court order also required restoration of DHS oversight offices. ICE denies its medical care is inadequate

2025-01-20 to 2026-06-04