The deaths of immigrants in ICE detention centers more than doubled since January 2025 when Donald Trump returned to the presidency.
A man from Vietnam with heart problems collapsed and died in “Speedway Slammer”, a notorious maximum security prison in Indiana who has been assigned to a symbol of American President Donald Trump's immigration policy.
At a Pennsylvania detention center a Chinese man who had previously attempted suicide was found hanged in the showers. In a facility in New York a man from Honduras with rapid heart beat and seizure due to sternive syndrome died in his cell without receiving help.
🔊 The death rate in ICE immigrant resolution centers more than doubled under Trump, according to a Reuters analysis. @tedhesson Tells the Reuters World News podcast, 'we spoke with several inmates or ICE details' for the story. Listen now https://t.co/oXXUp55ykq pic.twitter. com/cKsO8YKMYg— Reuters (@Reuters) June 17, 2026
These men are among about 50 people who died in immigration services detention centers, after Trump launched his wide-scale campaign to expel irregular immigrants in January 2025, according to immigration police (ICE) data.
From 2009 to 2024 at the U.S. immigrant detention facility a death per 3,848 prisoners was recorded annually, according to an analysis made by Reuters based on ICE data.
The percentage has more than doubled since Trump returned to the presidency, reaching one death per 1,630 people, according to preliminary evidence covering the period until early June.
The data analysed by Reuters was taken from the Deportation Data Project and processed by the Vera Institute of Justice, a non-profit organization supporting the reduction of prison rates.
The cause of death of prisoners is complicated and is not necessarily due to negligence or abuse. But three experts in deaths in custody, who examined ICE data and necropsies, stated that the increased number of deaths and other evidence raise concerns about the quality of supervision and medical care in detention centres.
The population of detention centres has grown vertically since Trump's return to the presidency. About 40,000 immigrants were detained by ICE when the Republican took over the presidency, a significant increase since February 2021 – during the pandemic – when their number had dropped to 14,000.
Then the number of immigrants in custody reached around 70,000 in January 2026 – during the big operation to locate irregular immigrants in Minneapolis – before falling back to about 57,000 in early June.
Twenty-one of the 50 deaths were detected after the prisoner had died or lost consciousness, according to ICE records.
These cases, including 10 suicides, are particularly worrying, because they could reflect a lack of oversight of physical and mental health and early care, Sanzai Basu, a doctor at the University of California in San Francisco, one of three experts who examined data and records on behalf of Reuters.
The arrests and cardiovascular problems are responsible for 16 deaths, with experts assessing that this demonstrates that there may be problems in the initial health controls of prisoners and in the management of chronic diseases.
Chanel Diaz, an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University's Irving Medical Center, said evidence suggests that ICE chose to detain people with vulnerable health, resulting in "a vertical rise in deaths that could be avoided".
"The system is not designed to manage chronic diseases," Dias noted, adding that at least two prisoners who died had dementia and were not a danger to the public.
"Complete medical care is provided from the moment people arrive (at detention centres) and throughout their stay," said Lauren Biss, a spokesman for the Ministry of Homeland Security in a communication to Reuters, with the ministry stressing that she is committed to ensuring "a safe, protected and human" detention environment.