The number of immigrants who have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody this fiscal year has reached a record high.
Twenty-nine people have died in ICE custody since October, the start of the federal fiscal year, surpassing 2004’s total of 28, according to government data.
The most recent death involved 27-year-old Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, a Cuban man held in ICE custody in Miami. An initial ICE report says he was found unresponsive in his cell on the morning of April 12 and lists the cause as a “presumed suicide,” though the official cause remains under investigation. ICE said Carbonell-Betancourt entered the United States in 2024 without valid documents and was later paroled into the country. He was arrested for resisting an officer with violence in 2025 and was transferred into ICE custody earlier this year.
The rise in deaths has coincided with a large expansion in detentions during the Trump administration. Detentions are up more than 70% under President Trump compared with the first year of the Biden administration as the administration has escalated enforcement, arresting and detaining both people with criminal records and many without criminal histories, including some with temporary protections from deportation. About 60,000 people are currently in immigration detention, according to ICE figures.
In a statement to NPR, the Department of Homeland Security disputed that there has been a spike in deaths and said the increase reflects the larger detained population. As of April 16, DHS said death rates in custody under the Trump administration were 0.009% of the detained population. The agency said ICE provides detainees access to medical care and asserted that for many, detention represents the best healthcare they have received. DHS also encouraged migrants to “self-deport,” pointing to the CBP Home App to manage departures.
At a congressional hearing, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said the high number of deaths this fiscal year is tied to the agency’s historically large detention population, noting ICE spent “almost half a billion dollars last fiscal year … to ensure that people have proper care.” Lyons reiterated that detainees receive a complete physical within 14 days and are seen by a medical professional within 24 hours of admission. “No death is what we want. We don’t want anyone to die in custody,” Lyons said. He submitted his resignation hours after testifying.
Lyons could not specify how many staff remain in the Office of Detention Oversight. He was also pressed about delays and gaps in public reporting of detainee deaths. In a letter to Lyons and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock noted that of 49 deaths in custody since January 2025, ICE issued an interim death notice within 48 hours in only 15 cases and that reports contained limited detail. Lyons said the agency is working on meeting reporting timelines and that those notices are essential work even during funding lapses.
Two facilities — the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California and Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas — have each reported three detainee deaths, the most among ICE’s detention sites. ICE’s initial reports attribute the six deaths at those facilities to a range of causes, including suicide, alcohol withdrawal, liver failure and kidney failure; some detainees exhibited symptoms such as shortness of breath.
One death at Camp East Montana was later ruled a homicide by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office. DHS initially said Geraldo Lunas Campos died after experiencing “medical distress” and that he had been disruptive while in line for medication and was placed in segregation. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, citing “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression,” and the FBI is investigating. Chris Benoit, an attorney for Lunas Campos’ family, said Lunas Campos arrived in the U.S. in the mid-1990s during the Cuban balsero migration and had lived and raised a family in the country for decades. DHS said Lunas Campos had prior convictions, including petty larceny, unlawful possession of a weapon during a robbery, and sexual contact with a child under 11. His three children, in a court petition seeking eyewitness testimony, said they plan to file a wrongful death lawsuit.
Rahul Mukherjee contributed to this report.