Deaths in ICE custody are growing. ‘They let him rot in there.’
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 13 hours ago
- 6 min read
By JAZMINE ULLOA, ALLISON McCANN and EMILIANO RODRÍGUEZ MEGA
It started with sharp pain in a tooth. For about a week, Emmanuel Damas sought treatment while he was being held at an Arizona immigration detention center, several detainees later told his family. But Damas, who had migrated from Haiti in 2024 under what was then a lawful U.S. program, was given only ibuprofen, the detainees said.
Soon, one of his brothers received a call that Damas was in a hospital intensive care unit. By the time his relatives were allowed to visit him nine days later, Damas, 56, was on life support, unable to move or speak but still shackled to a hospital bed. An infection had spread throughout his body, and Damas had most likely gone into septic shock, according to federal officials and interviews with his relatives.
“He could not even blink his eyes,” one of his brothers, Presly Nelson, said in an interview. “There was nothing there.”
He died on March 2 — one of 13 people who have died in federal immigration custody in the first three months of this year, and one of 46 who have died since President Donald Trump took office last year and began his mass deportation campaign, according to death reports and news releases made public by ICE.
The Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which have been leading the deportation effort, have faced growing scrutiny over agents’ aggressive, militarized tactics on American streets. And the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota this year helped lead to the ouster of Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary.
But as her successor, Markwayne Mullin, takes over, the number of people who have died in immigration detention has been drawing more attention. The number of immigrants in ICE custody has nearly doubled in the past 14 months, and the detention centers have been strained by the surge.
A spokesperson for CoreCivic, which operates the Arizona detention center where Damas fell ill, said only that the company takes “very seriously” the death of anyone in its care. “The safety, health and well-being of the people in our facilities is our top priority,” the spokesperson, Brian Todd, said.
The Department of Homeland Security maintains that detainees are receiving adequate care. In a statement, Lauren Bis, an agency spokesperson, said Damas was sent to the hospital on Feb. 19 immediately after he reported shortness of breath and that ICE had “higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons.” American prisons have long had deficiencies of their own in the medical care provided to inmates.
Many ICE detention facilities are run by large private companies, such as CoreCivic and the GEO Group, that also operate many prisons. The companies say that they provide round-the-clock medical care and proper diets and that they are subject to government oversight.
But a federal lawsuit and more than two dozen interviews with lawyers, detainees and their family members and elected officials depict acute deficiencies that they believe contributed to the deaths. They describe some of the country’s largest immigrant detention facilities as places where disease and illness are rampant and detainees are often denied sufficient food, clean drinking water, medications and medical care.
Damas’ death has galvanized opposition to collaboration between ICE and local and state authorities in Boston, home to the nation’s third largest Haitian population. “It is reprehensible,” said Ruthzee Louijeune, a Boston city councilor who has helped the Damas family obtain records, plan Damas’ funeral and cope with the fallout from his death. “It is unforgivable that in the United States a man in detention should die from a toothache.”
The 33 deaths in 2025 were the most in a single year on record since the Department of Homeland Security started operating in March 2003 and took charge of the nation’s immigration and border security agencies. During the four years of the Biden administration, deaths in custody ranged from a high of 11 to a low of three, averaging about seven a year. During the eight years of the Obama administration, an average of eight deaths a year occurred.
Even at 33 deaths last year, the death rate since Trump took office is still below historic peaks given the record number of people in ICE detention overall. At the start of this year, around 70,000 people were detained, though that figure had fallen slightly as of early February. (ICE has not released updated figures during the ongoing partial government shutdown.)
In Congress, the debate has been over reining in ICE’s tactics on the streets. Democrats have held up funding for DHS in an effort to secure reforms, like barring agents from wearing masks and requiring them to obtain judicial warrants.
The deaths in detention have prompted calls for congressional investigations, condemnation from leaders of some immigrants’ home countries and at least six lawsuits. And a federal judge has allowed members of Congress to continue to make unannounced inspections of detention sites, over the objections of the Trump administration.
Officials critical of the detention practices say ensuring oversight over quality of care will become more urgent as the nation’s detention system expands. Congress has allocated $45 billion for immigrant detention facilities, more than 10 times the previous budget.
In Southern California, a coalition of legal groups has filed a class-action lawsuit against homeland security officials over conditions at the Adelanto detention center. The facility, in the Mojave Desert, went from holding three detainees to nearly 2,000 in the past year, according to the lawsuit.
In more than two dozen declarations filed with the lawsuit, former and current detainees describe constantly feeling hungry, delirious and ill from rotten food, and lacking access to medication and medical care. The documents also include letters from doctors and lawyers detailing unsanitary conditions and the deteriorating mental and physical health of their clients.
Among the families represented are those of Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, and Gabriel Garcia-Aviles, 56, who died within weeks of each other in the fall. In interviews, their relatives said they were frustrated that their loved ones were already in grave condition by the time the authorities had contacted them.
Garcia-Aviles, a Mexican day laborer who had lived in the country for about 30 years, was picked up in Orange County, California, in October. When family members next saw him, he had been hospitalized for more than a week. In an interview, Mariel Garcia and Gabriel Garcia Jr. said their father had bruises, broken teeth and dried blood on his mouth and forehead.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Ayala-Uribe had not been denied medical care, and that, according to an autopsy, he had died after complaining of rectal pain for three weeks. A coroner’s report listed the cause of death as complications from a pelvic abscess, according to his lawyer.
The agency said that Garcia-Aviles suffered cardiac arrest tied to alcohol withdrawal syndrome, and his lawyer said a government autopsy is pending. The families said they have also sought independent autopsies and are waiting for results.
“I can tell you that the same questions you have, we have,” Mariel Garcia said, describing her father as a hardworking man who had sacrificed for his family and had no serious criminal history. DHS said he had unlawfully entered the country in 2007 and 2008, and court records show he had six minor offenses related to drinking in public or “performing excretory function in public.” His lawyer said he had been in the process of applying for an immigrant visa at the time of his arrest and had obtained a work permit.
In Massachusetts, Damas had reunited with relatives in Boston. He had legally entered the United States in 2024 under a Biden-era humanitarian program, and worked for his brothers’ transportation company, they said. But his status had been revoked when the Trump administration canceled the program last year, a development his family said he wasn’t aware of until his detention in Arizona.
Damas, a father of two, was a fan of Haitian kompa music and enjoyed a good party. That was also what landed him in trouble with authorities, his brothers said. After a family gathering, Damas was intoxicated and asleep when a neighbor called police to check on his then 12-year-old son, who had been playing outside alone. Though that issue was quickly resolved, Damas became agitated with his son and tried to hit him, Nelson said. Officers arrested Damas, who had no prior criminal record, according to court records, and charged him with domestic violence.
After one of his brothers posted bail, Damas was taken into immigration custody and shuffled through facilities from New York to Arizona, his relatives said. His brothers said they knew something was wrong when he stopped calling home from the detention center to check in.
When his mother last spoke to Damas, in mid-February, he was in so much pain that he could barely talk, Nelson said. After Damas was hospitalized, his brothers spent days trying to obtain permission from ICE to visit him. Like the Garcias and Ayalas, the family has paid for an independent autopsy in hopes of piecing together what happened.
“They let him rot in there and die like he had no family,” Nelson said.