ICE custody deaths hit a record, with Mexicans hardest hit

WASHINGTON (MNTV) — At least 37 people died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody between October 2025 and September 2026, the deadliest fiscal year in the agency’s history, according to a Bloomberg Law investigation — with Mexican nationals bearing a disproportionate share of the toll.

The figure exceeds the 33 deaths in fiscal 2025 and is more than triple the 11 in fiscal 2024, the last full year before Trump returned to office; ICE recorded 26 deaths across the entire Biden presidency. 

Separate Associated Press tracking found 58 deaths in ICE custody or during enforcement operations since Trump’s inauguration, 18 of them Mexican nationals — the largest single nationality.

Deaths have outpaced the growth of the detained population: while that population grew about 77 percent, annual deaths more than tripled.

Individual cases underscore the concerns: Heber Sánchez Domínguez, 34, was found hanged at a Georgia facility seven days after a license-related arrest; 19-year-old Royer Perez-Jimenez died in Florida in a presumed suicide; and Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano, 36, died at California’s Adelanto centre, his family questioning his diabetes and hypertension care. 

The deaths coincided with weakened oversight — hundreds of staff at detention-monitoring offices were suspended in March 2025 — even as Congress authorised $45 billion for detention through 2029 and some medical contracts were cut. 

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, after 11 unanswered diplomatic protests, has moved to pursue criminal complaints and civil action against detention contractors. 

DHS rejected claims of a crisis, saying there had been “NO spike in deaths” and that the mortality rate was comparable to prior years — though a steady rate still yields more deaths as the detained population tops 60,000.