#ice-deaths

#ice-deaths

A federal judge issued an emergency order on February 2 temporarily blocking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's latest effort to prevent Democratic lawmakers from making unannounced inspections of federal immigration jails, where at least 38 people have died since Donald Trump returned to the White House. "Unlawful secrecy has fueled the deadliest era in Department of Homeland Security detention history," said Andrew Fels, a staff attorney at the migrant rights group Al Otro Lado, in an email to Truthout. "Today's ruling reaffirms the importance of congressional oversight, particularly when lives, safety, and basic human dignity are at risk."

California's U.S. senators expressed grave concerns about conditions at the state's newest and largest immigration jail, and said they will not support an upcoming bill to further increase funding for immigration enforcement, after a visit Tuesday. "The most frequent feedback we got was the inadequacy of the medical care they are receiving," he added. "That's frightening." The immigration detention facility, owned and operated by the private, for-profit prison company CoreCivic, currently holds about 1400 people, the senators said, but it has a capacity for 2,560 detainees.

His death also brought the total to at least 22 between October 2024 and September 30, 2025, representing the highest number in 20 years. More than half were Latino, and the total includes the two migrants killed by a sniper at an ICE office in Dallas last month. The record for deaths in ICE custody was set in 2004, a year after the immigration agency's creation. There were 32 reported deaths that year.