2025–2026 ICE Detainee Death Surge
In 2025 and 2026, ICE detainees died in federal custody at an unprecedented rate across multiple facilities, including at least two deaths ruled homicides and a documented spike in suicides confirmed by an AP investigation. Individual deaths — a Cuban national killed under restraint at Camp East Montana ruled a homicide, a near-blind Rohingya refugee left in a freezing Buffalo parking lot ruled a homicide, and José Ramos-Solano dying at GEO Group's Adelanto facility — preceded a class-action lawsuit documenting a pattern of deaths and neglect at Camp East Montana and a GAO audit finding that the facility's rushed launch endangered detainees. Detainees at Adelanto launched a hunger strike over the same conditions. Together the entries document a systemic crisis in ICE detention oversight and conditions, not a series of isolated incidents. This episode should absorb future entries — additional deaths, autopsies, investigations, and accountability findings — as they arrive.
Documented in this episode (13)
ICE deported Francisco Gaspar-Andres's wife before he died and waited six days to notify Congress — first death at Camp East Montana
Francisco Gaspar-Andres, a 48-year-old Guatemalan national, died on December 3, 2025 at a hospital in El Paso after months of declining health while detained at Camp East Montana, ICE's tent-camp facility at Fort Bliss — the first confirmed death at that facility. He had been arrested in Florida in September 2025 and transferred to the camp, where detention medical staff treated him before he was hospitalized in November; medical staff attributed his death to complications of alcoholic hepatic cirrhosis. His wife, who was detained alongside him, was deported before being allowed to see him, and ICE did not notify Congress until six days after he died.
Lawful resident Pete Montejo, 72, hospitalized multiple times for septic shock before dying in ICE custody
Pete Sumalo Montejo, a 72-year-old citizen of the Philippines and lawful permanent resident, died on December 5, 2025, at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen, Texas, while in ICE custody. He had been hospitalized multiple times between May and November 2025 for serious illnesses including septic shock from pneumonia and anemia, but was returned to ICE detention after each stay. ICE attributed the death to suspected natural causes and, in its public release, foregrounded his criminal history.
Family demands independent autopsy after Jean Wilson Brutus, 41, dies within a day of entering Delaney Hall
Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian national, died on December 12, 2025, at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey — roughly one day after entering ICE custody at the GEO Group-operated Delaney Hall Detention Facility. ICE reported he showed no signs of distress at intake and listed the cause of death as "unknown." His family and advocates sought an independent autopsy and called for the facility's closure; Brutus was believed to be the first detainee to die at Delaney Hall since it opened in May 2025.
Lawmakers demand investigation after Nenko Gantchev found unresponsive and dies at newly expanded North Lake ICE facility
Nenko Stanev Gantchev, a 56-year-old Bulgarian national, was found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead on December 15, 2025 at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, operated by the GEO Group. ICE described the cause as "suspected natural causes" pending investigation. His death was the fourth ICE custody death in four days that month, prompting Democratic lawmakers to formally demand a federal investigation into medical care and oversight failures at the facility.
Cuban ICE detainee dies under restraint at Camp East Montana; death ruled a homicide
On January 3, 2026, Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban man, died at ICE's Camp East Montana detention camp on the Army's Fort Bliss base in El Paso, Texas. The El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, finding the cause to be asphyxia due to neck and torso compression while he was being physically restrained by law enforcement. ICE first said he died after "experiencing medical distress," then attributed the death to a suicide attempt and an ensuing struggle with staff; it was the third detainee death at the facility, and no one has been charged.
Family says Yanez-Cruz complained of chest pain for weeks before ICE transferred him to hospital where he died
Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, a 68-year-old grandfather from Honduras, died at 1:18 a.m. on January 6, 2026 at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Indio, California, after being moved from the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico for heart problems. ICE had arrested him on November 16, 2025 during an operation in Newark, New Jersey. His family says he complained of chest and stomach pain and shortness of breath for weeks before his death and has demanded an investigation into the adequacy of his medical care.
ICE routes Diaz autopsy to military hospital, bypassing ME who ruled prior Camp East Montana death a homicide
Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old Nicaraguan detained in the Minneapolis area under Operation Metro Surge, died on January 14, 2026 at Camp East Montana, the ICE tent facility on the Army's Fort Bliss base in El Paso, Texas — eight days after his arrest and roughly 1,200 miles from where he was taken. ICE called the death a "presumed suicide," but his family rejected that account, and the agency routed his autopsy to a military hospital that withholds its findings from the public, bypassing the El Paso County medical examiner who had ruled an earlier detainee's death at the same camp a homicide. Diaz was the third person to die at Camp East Montana in a 44-day span.
Border Patrol leaves near-blind Rohingya refugee in freezing Buffalo lot; death ruled homicide
On February 19, 2026, U.S. Border Patrol agents took Nurul Amin Shah Alam — a 56-year-old, nearly blind Rohingya refugee who spoke little English — from a county jail and released him alone outside a closed Tim Hortons in Buffalo, New York, in near-freezing cold. He was found dead five days later, and the Erie County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by a perforated duodenal ulcer precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration. DHS initially said agents had left him at a "safe location," but surveillance footage contradicted that account.
José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano dies in ICE custody at GEO Group-run Adelanto facility
José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano, a 45-year-old Mexican national, was found unconscious in his bunk and pronounced dead on March 25, 2026, while detained at the GEO Group-operated Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California. Other detainees said he had complained of overheating and difficulty breathing hours earlier and that staff did not respond until he was unresponsive. His death was the 14th known death in ICE custody in 2026 and at least the fourth at the Adelanto complex since 2025, prompting Mexico's Los Angeles consulate and two members of Congress to demand an investigation.
Detainees launch hunger strike over conditions at GEO Group-run Adelanto ICE complex
On May 19, 2026, at least 20 immigrants detained at the Desert View Annex — one of three facilities in the GEO Group-operated Adelanto ICE complex in Southern California — launched a hunger strike to protest custodial conditions, citing medical neglect, shrinking food portions, unsafe water, overcrowding, and retaliation against detainees who speak out. Their demands include due process and bond reform, adequate medical and mental-health care, nutritious food, accountability for deaths in custody, and the right to organize. The Department of Homeland Security denied that any hunger strike is taking place.
AP investigation finds ICE detainees dying by suicide at an unprecedented rate
An Associated Press investigation published May 27, 2026 found that at least 10 people have died by suicide in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since January 2025 — a pace far outstripping the growth of the detained population and unprecedented in the agency's two-decade history, against a historical baseline of roughly zero to one such death per year. Seven of the deaths have occurred since October 2025, already the most in any single fiscal year, and suicides now account for nearly a fifth of the 51 deaths in ICE custody over the period. AP's review of ICE data, autopsy reports, coroner's rulings, and police records found facilities repeatedly violated ICE's own detention standards on intake screening, suicide-risk monitoring, mental-health care, and access to materials that could be used for self-harm.
Detainees sue ICE over conditions at Camp East Montana amid three deaths and a homicide ruling
On May 30, 2026, the ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and the law firm Farella Braun + Martel filed a federal class-action suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over conditions at Camp East Montana, the nation's largest immigration detention facility — a tent camp on the Army's Fort Bliss base in El Paso. In under a year of operation the facility has recorded at least three detainee deaths, including one the El Paso County medical examiner ruled a homicide with no one charged, a nearly month-long measles outbreak, and roughly 49 detention-standards violations documented by ICE's own inspectors. The Department of Homeland Security called the inhumane-conditions claims "categorically false."
GAO finds ICE wasted up to $11.5M and endangered detainees in rushed Camp East Montana launch
On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report (GAO-26-108886) finding that ICE rushed the opening of Camp East Montana, the nation's largest immigration detention facility and a tent camp at the Army's Fort Bliss base in El Paso, wasting up to $11.5 million during its first two weeks in August 2025 while the camp sat empty. The watchdog found ICE awarded a roughly $1.3 billion operating contract to Acquisition Logistics LLC, a firm with no detention experience, and documented unsafe conditions including a contract guard's loss of a loaded firearm that was never recovered and the contractor's failure to provide required use-of-force and death reports. ICE terminated the Acquisition Logistics contract in March after three detainee deaths, a measles outbreak, and mounting human-rights allegations.