This is a list of Community Members who have been killed by federal agents, died while in custody of ICE or died because of their action while in the field.
This is the list we KNOW OF, there are MANY that are missing we do not have information about. The 34 people in 2025 at the hands of ICE, the highest number since 2004.
DETAINEE DEATH REPORTING BY ICE: https://www.ice.gov/detain/detainee-death-reporting
2025 LIST BY THE GUARDIAN: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/04/ice-2025-deaths-timeline
2026 JANUARY LIST BY THE GUARDIAN: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/28/deaths-ice-2026-
WRITTEN STATEMENT BY ICE: “ICE is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments. Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay. All people in ICE custody receive medical, dental and mental health intake screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility; a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility; access to medical appointments; and 24-hour emergency care. At no time during detention is a detained alien denied emergency care.” 2/18/26 https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/convicted-alien-felon-passes-away-indiana-hospital. ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Rest in Power…
December 2025 (8)
November 2025 (None reported as of 2/21/26)
October 2025 (5)
September 2025 (6)
August 2025 (2)
July 2025 (2)
June 2025 (2)
May 2025 (1)
April 2025 (3)
March 2025 (1)
February 2025 (2)
January 2025 (2)
Emmanuel Damas - March 2, 2026
Emmanuel Damas, 56, had been living in Massachusetts and was seeking asylum prior to his detention, according to U.S. Sen. Ed Markey.
Damas told medical personnel at the Florence Correctional Center that he had a toothache in mid-February, but he was not sent to a dentist, according to his brother Presly Nelson.
On Feb. 20, Markey said Damas's family found out from a nearby hospital that he had pneumonia and was on life support. He returned to federal detention a few days later, only to be hospitalized again and scheduled for surgery. He died on March 2.
Nelson believes staff at the facility did not take his brother’s complaints seriously, even though he had a treatable condition. Nelson said he would expect such a death in countries with less access to health care, but not in the United States.
Damas was taken into ICE custody in September and was soon transferred to the medium-security Florence Correctional Center, where he was held for several months, including after his asylum application was denied.
Alberto Gutierrez Reyes - February 27, 2026
Alberto Gutierrez Reyes, 48, died while in ICE custody at Adelanto detention center. He is the 9th known death in ICE custody this year.
According to his family Alberto had diabetes and high cholesterol and required daily medication. His needs were being neglected by detention staff who denied him the appropriate medical care. His son, Erick, said that “It could have been prevented if only they had given him medical attention”.
The family is now seeking justice and answers from the government. According to a statement from Mexico's Office of Foreign Affairs, "an immediate and thorough investigation will be demanded regarding the conditions that led to the death of Mexican nationals in the custody of this authority, in order to determine responsibilities and ensure that such events do not recur."
Nurul Amin Shah Alam- February 25, 2026
Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56-year-old Rohingya refugee who was nearly blind and spoke no English, was released from custody by U.S. Border Patrol — and dropped off at a Tim Hortons five miles from his home.
No ride. No notification to his family. No assistance whatsoever. Days later, he was found dead on a Buffalo street.
Shah Alam had fled persecution in Burma and arrived in Buffalo just 15 months ago, seeking safety. Instead, after being arrested last year for carrying a curtain rod he used as a walking stick — and allegedly being Tasered and beaten when he couldn’t follow English commands — he ended up in jail.
His family didn’t bail him out for fear he’d be shipped to ICE detention out of state. Eventually, he took a plea deal that allowed him to clear the immigration detainer and avoid ICE detention.
But when Border Patrol picked him up after bail, instead of transferring him to a detention center as expected, agents reportedly dropped him at a doughnut shop across town and left him to find his way home.
He was nearly blind. He couldn’t speak English. He had no phone. And no one told his family he’d been released.
For days, they searched. Police even briefly closed his missing persons case after mistakenly believing he was still in ICE custody. Now homicide detectives are investigating the “circumstances and timeframe” leading to his death. The cause has not yet been released.
Advocates for the Rohingya community are devastated.
“We never thought anyone would experience anything like this since coming to the United States,” said Imran Fazel, who knows the family. “It doesn’t make me feel safe in a country like this.”
Let’s be clear: Shah Alam survived genocide. He survived displacement. He survived fleeing his homeland. But in America — the country that promised refuge — he was allegedly abandoned in the dark. And he never made it home.
He leaves behind a wife and two sons. And a haunting question: How does a blind refugee get left on a street corner — and end up dead?
Linda Davis- February 19, 2026
Davis, 52, was killed during her morning commute Monday, less than a half mile (0.8 kilometers) from the school where she taught students with special needs. Local and federal authorities say a Guatemalan man crashed his pickup truck into Davis' car as he was fleeing a traffic stop by immigration officers.
Davis had been teaching in the Savannah area since 2022. Outside of work, she was raising four children of her own and was guardian to a fifth, according to her sister, Felicia Jackson.
"The preventable, sudden, and violent loss of her presence and love has created a vacuum of compounded grief so vast it feels as though it fills the Mariana Trench," Jackson said in a social media post.
Federal immigration officers have faced increased scrutiny for their aggressive tactics during the Trump administration's nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration, especially since they shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson and Chester Ellis, chairman of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners, have questioned whether the pursuit that ended in Davis' death was necessary.
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, Lindsay Williams, said the fleeing driver had no criminal history but was in the U.S. illegally.
Lorth Sim - February 16, 2026
Lorth Sim, a 59-year-old convicted felon from Cambodia, died in ICE custody Feb. 16 at Miami Correctional Facility in Miami County. Staff found him unresponsive in his cell, and he was pronounced dead at 7:10 a.m. despite lifesaving efforts by facility staff and EMS. His cause of death is under investigation.
Sim was arrested for disorderly conduct in 1989, indecent exposure in 1996, and larceny in 2005, receiving a suspended sentence and probation but no prison time. In 2006, ICE arrested him, and an immigration judge ordered his removal to Cambodia. On Dec. 30, 2025, ICE officers encountered Sim at the ICE office lobby in Boston and informed him he was under arrest and would be detained in ICE custody pursuant to a warrant of removal. On Jan. 5, 2026, ICE Boston transferred him to ICE Chicago custody. Sim entered the United States as a refugee in 1983 and became a lawful permanent resident in 1986.
Alex Pretti - January 24, 2026
Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse for a veterans affairs hospital, was fatally shot by federal agents during an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis on 24 January. The 37-year-old Minneapolis resident was trying to help a woman who had been pushed to the ground by ICE agents when he was tackled, beaten, restrained and shot to death.
Following his death, the senior White House official Stephen Miller wrote on X: “A domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement …” Video evidence showed that Pretti, who was carrying a firearm around his waist, was holding only his phone in his hand and that he was disarmed before being shot.
Heber Sánchez Domínguez - January 14, 2026
Heber Sánchez Domínguez, a 34-year-old from Mexico, died at the Robert A Deyton detention center in Lovejoy, Georgia, on 14 January. In a statement, ICE said that he was found unresponsive and that his death was under investigation. After being arrested in Georgia on 7 January for driving without a license, he was transferred to the Lovejoy detention center as he awaited removal proceedings. ICE said that the detention center staff found him hanging by his neck and transferred him to the Piedmont Henry medical center, where he was pronounced dead.
The Mexican consulate in Atlanta told CBS News that Mexican officials have asked that “the circumstances of the incident be clarified”.
Víctor Manuel Díaz - January 14, 2026
A 36-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant, Víctor Manuel Díaz, also died at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, on 14 January. In a statement following his death, ICE said that security staff found him “unconscious and unresponsive in his room”. ICE said that Díaz’s death was a “presumed suicide” but that his death remained under investigation.
“I don’t believe he took his life,” Díaz’s brother Yorlan Díaz told ABC News. “He was not a criminal. He was looking for a better life and he wanted to help our mother.”
Parady La - January 9, 2026
A Pennsylvania man, Parady La, died while in ICE custody at the Thomas Jefferson University hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 9 January. The 46-year-old Cambodian immigrant was picked up near his Upper Darby home a few days before his death, his family told 6 ABC Action News. In a statement, ICE said that La was found unresponsive in the federal detention center in Philadelphia, where he was receiving treatment for drug withdrawal.
He was given Narcan and then taken to the hospital and diagnosed with organ failures, among other conditions. His family was notified on 8 January and visited him at the hospital, after they had spent days searching for him. His daughter, Jazmine La, said that her father “was a real person and people loved him”.
Renee Nicole Good - January 7, 2026
Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot by a federal agent in her car on 7 January. The 37-year-old mother of three was a poet and writer who had moved to Minneapolis from Kansas City, Missouri, last year.
The DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, said that the law enforcement agent who killed Good had responded to an “act of domestic terrorism”.
Good studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Virginia, where she won an Academy of American Poets prize in 2020. Donna Ganger, her mother, told the Minnesota Star Tribune: “Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.”
Becca Good, the widow of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, said her wife “was made of sunshine” in her first public statement last week, days after a federal agent shot and killed Macklin Good in Minneapolis.
“Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled,” Good wrote in her first public statement to Minnesota Public Radio. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.”
Good remembered her wife as a woman defined by kindness. “Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow,” she wrote.
Of the shooting itself, Good wrote only briefly: “On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.”
Luis Beltrán Yáñez–Cruz - January 6, 2026
On 6 January, Honduran immigrant Luis Beltrán Yáñez–Cruz died at the John F Kennedy memorial hospital in Indio, California, from heart-related issues, according to an ICE statement following his death. The father of three initially entered the US in 1993, according to ICE, was removed from the country, and re-entered at least 20 years ago. ICE arrested him in Newark, New Jersey, in November 2025.
According to ICE, Yáñez-Cruz was detained at Imperial regional detention facility in Calexico and was later transferred to the hospital for chest pain, where he died. His daughter, Josselyn Yanez, told News Channel 3 that his heart-related issues began after he was detained. “My soul was destroyed,” she said, “because I really hoped that my father would leave that place, but not in this way.”
Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres - January 5, 2026
On 5 January, Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres, a 42-year-old immigrant from Honduras, died in ICE custody at HCA Houston Healthcare in Conroe, Texas. He had been admitted into the Houston-area hospital for a heart-related condition, according to an ICE statement. Núñez was first arrested by ICE agents during an operation in Houston on 17 November and was eventually transferred to the Joe Corley processing center in Conroe. On New Year’s Eve, ICE said, “he suffered multiple life-threatening medical emergencies, and HCA medical personnel moved him to the intensive care unit, where he remained until his death”. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement to the Guardian: “We have maintained higher standard of care than most prisons that hold US citizens – including providing access to proper medical care.” For many immigrants, the DHS said, “this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives”.
“My brother was a person full of life and hope, always fighting for his wellbeing and that of our family,” Núñez’s brother wrote in Spanish on a GoFundMe page requesting assistance in bringing his brother’s body home. “Sadly, his life was cut short due to the lack of adequate medical care while he was in ICE custody.”
Geraldo Lunas Campos - January 3, 2026
On 3 January, while in ICE custody, a Cuban immigrant died of homicide, according to a recent autopsy report. Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old father of four, died at the ICE facility Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. In a 9 January statement, ICE said, “Lunas became disruptive while in line for medication and refused to return to his assigned dorm. He was subsequently placed in segregation.” Medical personnel were called for assistance when they noticed him in distress, ICE claimed. The federal government later claimed that staff had been trying to save Lunas as he attempted suicide.
However, a witness told the Associated Press that Lunas Campos was handcuffed and that he was put into a chokehold until he became unconscious. The El Paso county medical examiner’s office autopsy report said that his body showed signs of damaged vessels on his neck and injury on his knees and chest, according to PBS.
Lunas Campos was originally arrested by immigration enforcement agents in Rochester, New York, in July, ICE said, and that he had been in the US for 30 years
Keith Porter Jr. - December 31, 2025
The last person killed in 2025 was Keith Porter Jr, a 43-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by an off-duty ICE agent outside of his Los Angeles apartment complex on the evening of 31 December 2025.
The father of two was firing a gun into the air, a Los Angeles police department spokesperson said, before the off-duty ICE agent, Brian Palacios, went to investigate. Porter was pronounced dead at the scene when police officers responded.
Nenko Stanev Gantchev - December 15, 2025
Nenko Stanev Gantchev, 56, was born in Bulgaria and died at the North Lake processing center in Baldwin, Michigan. Gantchev was “discovered unresponsive on the floor of his cell during routine checks”, and his official cause of death is still under investigation, according to ICE.
He had first arrived in the US in 1995. According to the agency, Gantchev was denied a green card in 2009 and, in 2023, was ordered by an immigration judge to return to Bulgaria. He was apprehended by immigration agents in September as part of the administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz”, which sent hundreds of federal agents to Chicago to crack down on unauthorized immigrants.
His wife, a US citizen, told the Serbian Times that Gantchev had type 2 diabetes and had complained for months about his deteriorating health. “A man who lived here for 30 years, worked hard, paid taxes – and they treated him like an animal,” Ganchev’s wife told the outlet. “They treated him as if he were a murderer.” She learned of his death on 16 December, the day of the couple’s eighth wedding anniversary.
Delvin Francisco Rodriguez - December 14, 2025
Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, 39, of Nicaragua died after months of detention at the Adams county correctional center in New Orleans. He had been arrested in late September, in Colorado, and was transferred to New Orleans. He was due to be deported to Nicaragua on December 13th.
On December 4th, according to ICE, emergency medical responders were called to the detention facility and Rodriguez was found to not have a pulse. He was transferred to the hospital, where he later died. He failed a “test to determine brain function”, according to ICE, and was removed from a ventilator in accordance with the wishes of his family.
Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir - December 14, 2025
Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir, 46, of Eritrea died of “medical distress”, according to the agency. According to court documents obtained by the Daily Voice, Abdulkadir filed for an emergency federal motion for medical relief three days before he died.
Abdulkadir had been an imam at the Islamic Center of Northeast Ohio, and had gained a green card in 2018. In 2023, he was charged with wire fraud and misuse of public funds and later sentenced to prison. Supporters wrote to a US district judge requesting leniency, arguing that Abdulkadir may not have fully understood the application process for the benefits programs he was convicted of misusing.
“We miss his teachings, his knowledge. We crave him for our own sake, not just for him. He’s an actively good man,” a supporter wrote, according to the Daily Voice.
ICE took custody of him in July 2024, and detained him at the Moshannon Valley processing center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, where he died a year and a half later. Community members raising funds for his funeral services said that Abdulkadir “spent his life selflessly caring for others, nurturing our children with the wisdom of the Qur’an, healing family rifts, and offering kindness to everyone he met. His boundless generosity touched countless souls, and the space he leaves behind feels immeasurably quiet and deep.”
Jean Wilson Brutus - December 12, 2025
Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old man from Haiti, died at the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, one day after he was taken into custody. Brutus came to the US in 2023 as an asylum seeker, his cousin said, who added that Brutus had been “very depressed and very sad” following the death of his mother.
ICE said Brutus died of “suspected natural causes”. His cousin told NBC New York that the family is still searching for answers about what happened. “We haven’t had some kind of closure surrounding his death,” Evans Belony, his cousin, told the outlet. “He was like a loved one, that we all loved, he was like a brother.”
The conditions at Delaney Hall, where Brutus was held, have come under scrutiny from lawmakers and advocates. Andy Kim, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, toured Delaney Hall the day after Brutus’s death and spoke to about 80 detainees, who he said described receiving poor medical care and “disgusting” meals that included raw meat. He called for the facility to be closed.
Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani - December 6, 2025
Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani, 48, of Pakistan, died at a hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. He first came to the US in 1996 as a nonimmigrant visitor, according to ICE, and overstayed his visa. He was arrested by border patrol in 2017, in North Dakota, and ordered to leave the US after he did not appear at a 2019 immigration court hearing. Then, in June, ICE located him at a jail in Euless, Texas, where he had been booked.
He spent more than five months at the Prairieland detention center in Alvarado, Texas, before he died. ICE has said Sachwani had a history of medical conditions – including chronic respiratory, liver and kidney issues – and died of “natural causes”.
Pete Sumalo Montejo - December 5, 2025
Pete Sumalo Montejo, 72, died at the Valley Baptist medical center in Harlingen.
He had first come to the US from the Philippines in 1962, as a lawful permanent resident. In 1992, he was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and in 2024 he was convicted for possession of a controlled substance, according to ICE.
In February, ICE detained Montejo at the Montgomery processing center, where he began to experience several medical complications including shortness of breath and hypoxia, anemia, and septic shock resulting from pneumonia, according to the agency.
Francisco Gaspar-Andrés - December 3, 2025
Francisco Gaspar-Andrés, a 48-year-old man from Guatemala, died at an El Paso hospital due to suspected kidney and liver failure, according to ICE.
He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Lucía Pedro Juan, and their four daughters. The couple had run a plant nursery outside Miami for a decade, and Pedro Juan has described him as a hard-working husband who fought to provide for their family.
According to an interview Pedro Juan gave to the El Paso Times, the couple had gone on a grocery run during the Labor Day holiday when they were pulled over by a highway patrol officer who asked to see their identification papers, and then turned them over to ICE; they were eventually separated by immigration officers. “I hugged him, I tickled him on his ribs and I gave him a kiss on his cheek,” she said of their goodbye. “I never saw him again.” Pedro Juan was detained for three months and later deported to Guatemala.
Gaspar-Andrés ended up at Camp East Montana, a detention facility at the Texas military base known as Fort Bliss. The American Civil Liberties Union has called the facility a “human and civil rights catastrophe” following several reports of injuries, illnesses and abuses.
Gaspar-Andrés was repeatedly seen by medical staff for symptoms including bleeding gums, sore throat and body aches, fever, jaundice and hypertension. He was transferred to a hospital on 16 November, where he was diagnosed with hyponatremia. He was later placed on dialysis and palliative care, before he died in December, according to ICE.
His wife told the El Paso Times that Gaspar-Andrés had been relatively healthy prior to his detention, and disputed ICE’s assertion that he had hypertension or other underlying conditions.
Kai Yin Wong - October 25, 2025
Kai Yin Wong, 63, of China, died at a hospital in San Antonio, Texas.
Wong had first come to the US in 1970 as a permanent resident. He was convicted of sexual abuse of a child in 2010, and served a 14-year sentence. He was then transferred to ICE custody and ordered deported from the US.
Before his death, he had been detained at the South Texas ICE processing center in Pearsall. In October, he was first transferred to a local hospital after he complained of shortness of breath, and then airlifted to another hospital in San Antonio when he started to experience heart failure and possible pneumonia. He was transferred to another medical center for heart valve repair surgery, according to officials, and died from complications.
Gabriel Garcia Aviles - October 23, 2025
Gabriel Garcia Aviles, a 54-year-old from Mexico who had been living in the US for 30 years, died about a week after being detained by immigration agents.
Aviles was a father of two and grandfather of three, according to his family. His daughter, Mariel, told LA Taco she used to speak with him every day, and described him as someone who was “always happy and loved bikes”.
Customs and Border Protection agents grabbed him during a “roving patrol” in the southern California city of Costa Mesa on 14 October. Mariel last spoke with him shortly after he was apprehended, she told LA Taco. In the days that followed, his family tried repeatedly to contact him, but said that officers at the Adelanto detention facility refused to connect them.
A week after his detention, Mariel received a call informing her that her father was in critical condition at the Victor Valley global medical center. The last time his family was able to see Aviles, he was unconscious in a hospital room guarded by immigration officers, Mariel told LA Taco.
His family has questioned ICE’s assessment that Aviles died of “natural causes” and complications of alcohol withdrawal. He had been healthy, his daughter said, prior to his detention.
Josué Castro Rivera - October 23, 2025
Josué Castro Rivera, a 25-year-old man from Honduras, was killed while trying to flee ICE agents in Virginia.
He had been on his way to a gardening job when ICE agents pulled over his vehicle, his brother, Henry Castro, told reporters. When agents tried to detain Castro Rivera and three other passengers, he fled, running into traffic. He was struck while crossing Interstate 264 in Norfolk.
According to his brother, Castro Rivera had come to the US four years ago, and had been working to help support family in Honduras. “He had a very good heart,” Castro told the Associated Press. “He didn’t deserve everything that happened to him.”
Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh - October 11, 2025
Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh, who was from Jordan, first came to the US in 1994 and became a lawful permanent resident a few months after he arrived in the country. Saleh, 67, died after being detained at the Krome detention center in south-west Miami-Dade county.
He managed a convenience store in Fort Lauderdale. In 2017, he was charged – along with a dozen other clerks and store owners – in a scheme to exchange food stamps for cash. He had served time in prison, and after his release in 2020, ICE placed him under an “order of supervision” that required him to regularly check in with immigration officers. In 2025, he was apprehended and placed at Krome.
He was taken to a local hospital due to a high fever, and became unresponsive. A physician listed his preliminary cause of death as cardiac arrest.
Leo Cruz-Silva - October 4, 2025
Leo Cruz-Silva, a 34-year-old man from Mexico, died while detained by ICE at the Ste Genevieve county jail in Missouri. He died by apparent suicide, according to ICE.
A few days before he died, he was detained by police in Festus, Missouri, for public intoxication, according to federal immigration officials. The police then handed him over to ICE, which served him with a notice that the agency would reinstate a previous deportation order. Cruz-Silva had likely entered the US before 2010, when he was a child, according to immigration officials, and was expelled twice after re-entering via the southern border.
About 50 people organized a vigil to mourn him. “He was a person, he was a brother, he was a son, he was a person,” Susie Johnson, the founder of Abide in Love, a non-profit that works with ICE detainees in Missouri jails, told St Louis Public Radio. “All loss of life, in my opinion, is tragic, and I hate that it happened in our community,” she said.
Huabing Xie - September 29, 2025
Huabing Xie, of China, died at El Centro regional medical center in Calexico, California. The border patrol had apprehended Xie on 12 September in Indio, California, and transferred him to the Imperial regional detention facility, according to ICE. In 2023, he had been placed under removal proceedings, the agency said.
The agency said that Xie experienced “what appeared to be a seizure and became unresponsive” and medical personnel at the detention center tried to administer life-saving measures, before emergency medical services arrived and took him to the hospital, where he died.
Miguel Ángel García Medina - September 29, 2025
Miguel Ángel García Medina, 31, of Mexico, was killed outside an ICE field office in Dallas. García Medina is survived by his wife, Stephany Gauffeny, two stepdaughters and a son – who was born three days after his death – his mother and grandparents, who live in Mexico, and three siblings.
“Everyone tells me the same thing: he was very funny. He always made us laugh, and that’s why we miss him so much,” Gauffeny told the Guardian. “He was very goofy, you almost always saw him laughing, joking or singing.”
Gauffeny – who clarified to the Guardian that her husband was referred to in an ICE press release as Miguel García-Hernández, his stepfather’s last name – also said: “He was a very present father. Sometimes he wouldn’t go to work if my daughters needed something.”
García Medina was born in San Luis Potosí, a central state in Mexico, and crossed the US border without papers when he was a teenager, settling in Arlington, Texas. He met Gauffeny at a party shortly after and the two were friends for years before they became a couple. He had lived in the Dallas area for nearly two decades, most recently making a living painting and remodeling homes. In his free time, he liked to work on his truck, Gauffeny said.
He ended up in ICE custody early on September 24th, after a short time in jail for a DUI. While he was shackled inside a government van outside the ICE field office, a gunman opened fire. He died five days later of his gunshot wounds. He would have turned 32 on January 5th, which is also the day of his 10th wedding anniversary. Gauffeny told the Guardian that he had been in the process of obtaining a green card and planning to open his own painting company. “He made business cards and said he was going to buy the equipment,” she said. “He was so excited and had a lot going for him.”
Norlan Guzman-Fuentes - September 24, 2025
Norlan Guzman-Fuentes, 37, of El Salvador, was killed when a gunman opened fire at the ICE field office where he was being held. Guzman-Fuentes was arrested by Dallas police in late August, due to an outstanding warrant for driving under the influence and other charges that were later dropped.
He is survived by his partner, Berenice Prieto, and four children. He had worked mowing lawns and trimming trees, and in his free time he liked fishing around the Dallas-Forth Worth area, his loved ones told CBS.
“We had just bought our first home together, and he worked hard every single day to make sure our children had what they needed. His death is a senseless tragedy that has left our family shattered,” Prieto said in a public statement shortly after his death. “I do not know how to explain to our children that their father is gone.”
Ismael Ayala Uribe - September 22, 2025
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, died after falling ill at the Adelanto detention center in California.
His mother, Lucía Uribe, told the Guardian that Ismael had come to the US from Mexico when he was five, crossing the US southern border along with his sister and cousin to join his mother and father. The family settled in Westminster, California, and later moved to Huntington Beach.
He spent a year studying graphic design, and then began working – first at a factory that produced cleaning supplies and later at car washes. Lucía said that Ismael loved listening to music. He was always willing to help others, and often helped his sister, a single mother, with childcare.
Uribe had been protected from deportation under the Daca program, but he was denied renewal because he had been convicted of driving under the influence.
He was apprehended in August during an immigration raid at the Fountain Valley Auto Wash, where he had worked for about 15 years, and was transferred to Adelanto. There, he fell ill – first with a cough and fever, and then other medical complications, according to his family. He was transferred to a hospital, where he died.
His mother learned of the detention through one of his co-workers, and said she was unaware of any medical condition he had. “I want to see less medical negligence,” she told the Guardian, referring to conditions at ICE detention centers.
ICE said Uribe’s cause of death was “still under investigation”.
Santos Banegas Reyes - September 18, 2025
Santos Banegas Reyes, 42, of Honduras, died at the Nassau county correctional center in New York. He was a construction worker and a father of two daughters, one of whom lives in the US while the other lives in Honduras.
He was apprehended on 17 September by federal immigration agents just hours before he was found “not breathing” in his cell at the Nassau county correctional center. According to ICE, the preliminary cause of death appeared to be liver failure complicated by alcoholism. His family is contesting his cause of death, and have requested an independent autopsy.
Oscar Rascon Duarte - September 8, 2025
Oscar Rascon Duarte, 58, had first come to the US in 1976, was deported in 2004 and then re-entered via the southern border. He served a 20-year sentence in prison for attempted sexual contact with a minor and child molestation. After he completed his sentence, he was transferred to ICE custody.
At first, he was held at the Florence staging facility, according to ICE, but was later transferred to Promise hospital in Mesa, Arizona, “due to late-stage Alzheimer disease, right kidney cancer, and hepatitis C all of which required a higher level of care”, where he eventually died, ICE said.
Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas - August 31, 2025
Known as “Lenchito” by friends and family, 32, died after he was detained at the Central Arizona Florence correctional complex. Batrez Vargas was a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) recipient who was brought to the US from Mexico as a five-year-old. He was arrested by police in Flagstaff, Arizona, on 2 August, and charged with possession and use of drug paraphernalia. Immigration enforcement agents said they took Batrez Vargas into custody in Phoenix before transferring him to the detention center in Florence, where his family believes he contracted Covid-19, according to media reports.
ICE said that his cause of death was unknown and remained under investigation. “We want justice. We want this to never happen to anyone else, especially not to undocumented immigrants,” Jaime Vargas, Batrez Vargas’s uncle, told Univision.
Chaoefeng Ge - August 5, 2025
Chaofeng Ge, 32, of China, died four days after entering ICE custody in Pennsylvania. Ge was born in 1992 in Luoyang, Henan province, China, and worked in construction. He arrived in the US via the southern border in 2023, when he was detained for unlawful entry. According to an attorney for his family, he spent his time while incarcerated trying to learn English, practicing by writing out scripture and short stories.
He was eventually released and settled in Queens, New York, where he worked as a delivery driver, according to his attorney. In 2025, he was arrested for possessing several stolen credit card numbers in his cell phone and for unauthorized access to a device, and was eventually detained by ICE. ICE and the Pennsylvania state police said that he died by suicide while detained.
His family filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in the southern district of New York, requesting more information about his death. “I am devastated by the loss of my brother and by the knowledge that he was suffering so greatly in that detention center,” said Yaofeng Ge in a public statement. “He did not deserve to be treated that way. I want justice for my brother, answers as to how this could have happened, and accountability for those responsible for his death.”
Ge is survived by four siblings and his parents, who live in China.
Tien Xuan Phan - July 19, 2025
Tien Xuan Phan, 55, died at the Methodist hospital north-east in Live Oak, Texas. He was detained earlier in June for failing to leave the US after a removal order, and held at the Karnes county immigration processing center in Karnes City. He was transferred to a hospital for evaluation after experiencing seizures and vomiting, and becoming unresponsive, according to ICE. His cause of death remains under investigation.
Isidro Pérez - June 26, 2025
Isidro Pérez, 75, of Cuba died at a Florida hospital of undetermined causes. According to the Miami Herald, Pérez was a mechanic and fisher from Cuba, and arrived in the US in 1966 at the age of 16.
He was convicted of marijuana possession in the 1980s and served time in prison. His stepdaughter told the Herald that, during his time behind bars, Pérez studied to become a mechanic, and that when he got out of prison, he began rescuing animals. “We’re all humans, you know, we make mistakes, but we remake ourselves,” she told the outlet.
On 5 June, five immigration officers apprehended Pérez at a community center. Officers took him to the Krome north service processing center in Miami. Three weeks later, Pérez died in ICE custody.
Johnny Noviello - June 23, 2025
Johnny Noviello, 49 years old, was found unresponsive at the Bureau of Prisons’ federal detention center in Miami.
Noviello moved with family from Quebec to Florida in 1988 and became a lawful permanent resident in 1991. His father, Angelo, told the Guardian that Johnny was diagnosed with epilepsy shortly after he was born, and would often become ill during the winter. So the family settled in Daytona Beach, seeking a warmer climate. Hespent most of his life in Florida. He worked at a Dollar Tree and loved going to the beach and playing pool in his spare time, his father said. He maintained close ties to Canada, making regular trips to see family in Montreal.
He spent time in prison for selling drugs, including hydrocodone and oxycodone, but was released early on good behavior. He was apprehended by ICE agents on 15 May at the Florida department of corrections probation office. Noviello’s cause of death is under investigation. Noviello’s father said the family has not received an autopsy report. “We’re in limbo, we don’t know what happened,” he said. “I don’t know why they didn’t send him to Canada right away.”
Jesus Molina-Veya - June 7, 2025
Jesus Molina-Veya, a 45-year-old citizen of Mexico, died at the Stewart detention center in Lumpkin, Georgia. He entered the country without authorization on numerous occasions, starting in 1999, according to authorities. During his time in the US, Molina-Veya was arrested on charges including child molestation, a hit-and-run and possession of controlled substances, ICE said.
On 7 June, Molina-Veya was found unresponsive in his cell. While an official cause of death has not been released, an ICE spokesperson has called the death “an apparent suicide”. His death was the second reported in Georgia within a month, a state with one of the highest numbers of detainees in the US.
Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado - May 5, 2025
Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado, 68, died while in transit from a local jail to a federal detention center, the first detainee to die in this manner in at least a decade.
Delgado was originally from El Huariche, Mexico. During his nearly 40 years in the US, he raised a large family and worked on tobacco and vegetable farms, according to previous Guardian reporting. Delgado, who did not have legal status, was apprehended in Statenville, Georgia, on a parole violation on 9 April. His family told the Guardian they grew alarmed by his deterioration in jail, and worried about the medications he was being given.
Eventually, Delgado was transferred from the jail to Georgia’s Stewart detention center. But he never made it. Instead, he became “unresponsive” in the transport van with highly elevated blood pressure; the driver called 911, but Delgado died on the scene.
ICE has said the cause of death is under investigation and his family said they are still waiting for answers. “It bothers me,” his son, Junior, told the Guardian in June. “He was a great-grandfather.”
Marie Ange Blaise - April 25, 2025
Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old citizen of Haiti, died at the Broward transitional center in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Blaise entered the US on an unknown date and location, according to ICE. She was apprehended by Customs and Border Protection on 12 February while attempting to board a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, according to authorities.
ICE has not released an official cause of death. According to reporting by WLRN Public Media on the medical examiner’s report about her death, Blaise spoke to her son hours before she died. “She complained of having chest pains and abdominal cramps, and when she asked the detention staff to see a physician, they refused her,” her son told investigators, according to WLRN Public Media. According to the outlet, ICE offered a conflicting account, saying that Blaise did not take blood pressure medication she was offered.
Nhon Ngoc Nguyen - April 16, 2025
Nhon Ngoc Nguyen, 55, died at a hospital in El Paso, Texas.
He was apprehended in February in Albuquerque, according to his family’s lawyer, Tin Nguyen, and his partner and friends couldn’t locate him for days. Eventually, they realized he was being held at the El Paso processing center in Texas. Tin Nguyen said that Nhon Ngoc had been showing early signs of dementia and possible side effects from a head injury prior to his detention.
Shortly after his detention, he began experiencing health complications, Tin Nguyen told the Guardian. ICE eventually offered to release him, so long as his family was able to provide him with round-the-clock acute care, the attorney said – but he didn’t have health insurance and his family was unable to pay for such care. In the meantime, Nhon Ngoc’s condition began rapidly worsening. He died of acute pneumonia, according to ICE.
Nhon Ngoc had come to the US in 1983 and became a legal resident as part of the Refugee Act of 1980. In 1991, he was convicted of second-degree murder and served time at San Quentin prison, in California. After his sentence, in 2013 ICE opened a deportation case against him. While it was pending, he moved to Albuquerque and began rebuilding his life.
He had a loving partner and a huge community of friends, Tin Nguyen said: “He was kind.”
Brayan Garzón-Rayo - April 8, 2025
Brayan Garzón-Rayo, 27, of Colombia, died at the Phelps county jail in Rolla, Missouri. His mother, Lucy Garzón, told St Louis Public Radio that she and her family came to the US in November 2023, fleeing growing threats of violence and harassment from law enforcement in Bogotá.
In March Garzón-Rayo was charged with a misdemeanor for credit card fraud, and then transferred to ICE custody. He spoke to his mother a few days before he died, Lucy Garzón told SLPR, and complained about stomach pains and the poor quality of the jail’s food.
Lucy Garzón told SLPR that officials told her that her son appeared to have died by suicide. ICE has not confirmed an official cause of death.
His mother said that Garzón-Rayo loved riding his motorcycle, watching soccer and sledding after fresh snowfall.
Ruben Ray Martinez - March 15, 2025
ICE shot and killed a 23-year-old U.S. citizen in Texas. We’re finding out nearly a year later. On March 15, 2025, Ruben Ray Martinez was killed on South Padre Island during what was publicly described as an “officer-involved shooting.”
Only after a FOIA request, reviewed by Newsweek, did internal ICE records reveal that a Homeland Security Investigations agent fired the shots. The report says Martinez and his passenger were U.S. citizens.
This was added on February 21, 2026 - almost a year after his death. Bringing the death toll to 33 in 2025 that we know of.
Juan Alexis Tineo-Martinez - February 23, 2025
Juan Alexis Tineo-Martinez, 44, of the Dominican Republic, died at the Centro Medico hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was taken into custody by US Customs and Border Protection air marine operations two days prior to his death, according to ICE.
Agents contacted local 911 after Tineo-Martinez said he was experiencing leg pain, according to the agency, and he was transferred to the hospital for evaluation. The Dominican embassy in Puerto Rico did not respond to the Guardian’s query about Tineo-Martinez’s cause of death.
Makesym Chernyak - February 20, 2025
Maksym Chernyak, a Ukrainian citizen, died of an apparent stroke at a hospital in Miami. Chernyak, 44, fled Kyiv with his long term-partner during the Russia-Ukraine war and came to the US on humanitarian parole, according to the Miami Herald.
Chernyak was arrested on 26 January over a domestic violence claim. His partner described the incident as a “family misunderstanding” exacerbated by a language barrier, according to the Miami Herald. He was “kind and warm-hearted”, she told the outlet. Chernyak was then transferred to the Krome detention center in Miami.
While in custody, he experienced “vomiting and seizure activity”, according to ICE. Chernyak was then transferred to a hospital on 18 February, where staff “established a stroke alert due to unresponsive state”, according to ICE. A preliminary cause of death was listed as “bleeding from the brain”.
An investigation by the Miami Herald said that medical experts who reviewed his case have raised concerns about whether Chernyak received adequate care due to the length of time that elapsed before Krome staff called 911. ICE denied allegations that Chernyak did not receive proper medical attention.
Serawit Gezahegn Dejene - January 29, 2025
Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, 45, of Ethiopia, died at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. He had come to the US in August 2024, and was apprehended by the border patrol, which transferred him to the Eloy detention center. He had cleared the initial steps to apply for asylum according to ICE.
In December 2024, he reported to staff at the detention center that he had an elevated heart rate and fatigue, and was seen by healthcare providers who said he had a possible lymphoma diagnosis, according to ICE.
Genry Ruis Guillén - January 23, 2025
Guillén had come to the United States from Honduras in 2023. He worked in construction. He died in the hospital of Hialeah Florida.
In October 2024, he was apprehended by local law enforcement, and then transferred to the Krome immigrant detention center in South Florida. His mother told Univision that in December, Guillén called her from detention and told her he wasn’t feeling well, and that he was experiencing fainting spells. It was the last time she spoke with him, she said.
According to ICE, Guillén “had difficulty breathing, prompting a medical emergency” before he died. “I never thought my son would come to this country to die like this, nor did I ever think I would receive that news,” his mother told Univision.
Community Together 417 is a small, non-partisan, grassroots group in Springfield, Missouri. Our mission is to listen to the community and provide and share groups, events and actions that are focused on saving our democracy, our rights, our liberty and our pursuit of happiness.