Get_Right said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

But don’t you dare call them death camps. Tell that to the families of the ones who have died.

Record deaths in US immigration custody expose systemic failures

Families, advocates and lawmakers say poor care, opaque investigations and bureaucracy leave deaths unexplained

The circumstances of many of the record number of deaths in US immigration custody under the second Trump administration have left loved ones often searching in vain for answers amid a lack of transparency over key investigations.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reports mandated by Congress, autopsy reports and 911 calls collected by the Guardian raise questions about the quality of medical care, allegedly inadequate or haphazard responses to emergencies, and contraction of diseases and infections inside detention facilities that in some cases contributed to detainee deaths.

Families and their attorneys, as well as immigration advocates and Democratic elected officials have struggled to navigate a bureaucratic labyrinth of multiple federal agencies, local medical examiners and coroners, walled-off detention facilities, and, in some cases, local law enforcement, to obtain answers about the many deaths.

Just in the last week, Afghan asylum seeker Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal, 41, who had worked with US special forces in military operations in his home country, died in ICE custody in Texas, and then 19-year-old Royer Perez-Jimenez, from Mexico, died in what ICE has called a “presumed suicide” at a facility in Florida. He became the youngest to die in ICE custody since Donald Trump returned to the White House and it brought the figure of known deaths in ICE custody during this administration to 42.

Veronica Escobar, a Texas congresswoman, said the maze of local and federal agencies and facilities, as well as private contractors operating detention facilities is a “massive problem”.

“It’s a quagmire created by choice … This is not how things should work,” she said.

Escobar’s district covers El Paso in west Texas, where Camp East Montana was built on the Fort Bliss army base last summer to hold up to 5,000 detainees in tents as the largest immigration facility in the US.

Escobar and fellow Democrats have joined advocates and protesters calling for the closure of Camp East Montana, where the ACLU and others have alleged poor conditions and abuse of detainees. Several deaths have occurred at the camp.

And nationwide, there have been six suicides in immigration custody in the last 13 months – the most in a 13-month period in the last eight years, according to the limited US government records available.

The 42 deaths occurred among those detained in facilities scattered coast to coast, where almost 70,000 immigrants are now locked up – more than any time in US immigration history. The Trump administration is rushing to expand detention further with plans to convert warehouses in several states.

Escobar said to the Guardian in a telephone interview that the deaths across the US are “alarming and incredibly tragic”.

“The federal government is failing miserably either through incompetence or abject cruelty and neglect,” she said.

As more are detained, the death toll rises.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes ICE, was sent detailed questions and requests for comment and has responded.

“There has been NO spike in deaths. Consistent with data over the last decade, death rates in custody are 0.009% of the detained population,” an unnamed DHS spokesperson said.

DHS did not provide a source for the figure it cited in its response. The statement continued: “As bed space has rapidly expanded, we have maintained higher standard (sic) of care than most prisons that hold US citizens – including providing access to proper medical care. For many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives.”

DHS’s response to questions for this story included pointing out the criminal histories of some of the detainees who have died. Others who have died have no criminal past.

Government data shows that detainees with no criminal histories make up the largest portion of those in ICE detention, a total that peaked at more than 70,000 this January, a fresh record. Breaching immigration law is a civil offense, not criminal.

Austin Kocher, an assistant research professor at Syracuse University and an immigration data and policy expert, posted on BlueSky: “ICE detention deaths are now occurring at a rate of roughly one every four days. Three weeks ago that rate was one every six days. The pace is accelerating, and Congress has not launched a single investigation.”

In early January 2026, Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, was arrested by ICE in a Minneapolis suburb for being in the US illegally. On 14 January, he was found dead inside a medical clinic at Camp East Montana, where ICE said his death was presumed to be a suicide, and the official cause was under investigation.

However, members of Diaz’s family told the Associated Press that they are suspicious of the idea that he took his own life because he was not depressed and was about to be reunited with his mother and other relatives upon being deported to Nicaragua. Like so many other bereaved loved ones, they are waiting and hoping to hear more that would explain the loss of their relative.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/21/ice-deaths-trump-administration

42 vs. 6,000,000. Yeah that is great comparative support. Keep up the hyperbole. Not even close.

mickeyrat said:

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UPDATE: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an inquiry into the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban national who died January 3 while in ICE custody in Texas.

Lunas Campos came to the U.S. in 1996 as part of a wave of Cuban immigrants and had lived in Rochester, New York for more than two decades. ICE detained him there in July and transferred him to Camp East Montana, a detention facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

What happened: Witnesses told the Associated Press that Lunas Campos (already handcuffed) was restrained on the ground by at least five guards. One guard allegedly placed an arm around his neck in a chokehold. He reportedly said “I can’t breathe” repeatedly before losing consciousness.

The autopsy found abrasions on his chest and knees, hemorrhages on his neck, and determined he died of asphyxia due to compression of the neck and torso. The El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled his death a homicide.

ICE’s cover story: ICE’s initial statement made no mention of any use of force saying only that staff “observed him in distress” with no cause of death given. After the Washington Post reported the medical examiner was likely to rule it a homicide, ICE changed their story and told the Associated Press he had died attempting suicide. Their updated report calls it a “spontaneous use of force to prevent self-harm” directly contradicting handcuffed eyewitnesses who watched guards choke him to death.