ICE cannot be allowed to hide its death count

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

On June 4, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it will no longer investigate or report the deaths of those recently released from detention centers.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, this policy update is “common sense.” Although ICE “remains committed to transparency regarding detainee deaths,” the agency is “not responsible when an individual passes away weeks after leaving their custody.”

Despite this statement, there are important reasons to be concerned. First, ICE routinely releases people far from their homes without any means to get back. For instance, in 2025, Jesus Ramirez Ramos was detained in Salina, Kansas and transported to a detention center in Michigan. After nine months of confinement, he was given dirty clothes and told that his phone had been lost. If not for a group of activists who support people recently released from detention centers, he would have been stranded with no money and no way to contact his loved ones.

Ramos’s case is not unique. According to The Marshall Project, within the first year of President Trump’s second term, the number of people transferred five or more times has more than tripled. The American Friends Service Committee likewise reports that, in many cases, ICE’s online locator tool fails to show where people are being detained or whether they have been transferred. Friends and family are left to wonder where in the country (or in the world) their loved ones have ended up.

Second, people have been seriously injured under ICE’s custody. In January, amid Operation Metro Surge, ICE agents dropped off Alberto Castañeda at a Minnesota hospital with broken bones in his face and skull. Officers claimed that Mondragon ran into a brick wall while attempting to escape. Three nurses familiar with the case said that explanation could not possibly account for the extent of his injuries.

Lindsey C. Thomas, a forensic pathologist with more than 30 years of experience, remarked, “I almost think one doesn’t have to be a physician to conclude that a person can’t get skull fractures on both the right and left sides of their head and from front to back by running themselves into a wall.”

Mondragon was released two weeks after his arrest. He has no family in Minnesota and, due to his injuries, suffered permanent and significant memory loss.

Third, and relatedly, former and current detainees have reported being deprived of medical services and proper nutrition. One person detained in a Colorado ICE facility described being fed “small scoops of beans and corn, a few pieces of lettuce, half a slice of bread and ‘a baby’s spoon-sized serving of something unidentifiable without color.'”

In May, Elder Guerra slipped and fell inside New Jersey’s Delaney Hall facility. The other detainees reported that, despite Guerra suffering a seizure, guards did not immediately call an ambulance. A relative told reporters that Guerra’s condition is worsening, and he is starting to lose hearing in his left ear.

That facility, operated by the private prison company Geo Group, has faced repeated accusations of neglectful guards, feeding inmates spoiled or rotten food, as well as depriving them access to adequate medical care or even basic hygiene products, including toilet paper, menstruation products or toothpaste.

Fourth, and what is ultimately a culmination of the above three points, DHS has left vulnerable people in dangerous situations.

In February, Customs and Border Protection officers abandoned Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a nearly blind refugee who didn’t speak English, alone on a cold winter night in New York state — he died a few days later. A state medical examiner ruled it a homicide with the cause of death being “complications of a perforated ulcer precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration.”

Similarly in Pittsburgh, medical examiners determined that the March death of Haitian asylum seeker Daphy Michel was a homicide. Michel, who the medical examiner said was “suffering from untreated severe mental health issues and a significant language barrier,” had been arrested by ICE in late February. She was given an ankle monitor and taken to a bus stop 40 miles away in Pittsburgh, where she died of hypothermia days later.

Importantly, the policy that the Department of Homeland Security is rescinding was originally instituted in 2021 by the Biden administration, to hold ICE accountable for releasing severely ill detainees — cases precisely like Alam’s and Michel’s.

The reality is that ICE has a long track record of abusing detainees. A 2022 survey of 85 clinicians found that of the roughly 1,300 patients they had treated, all of them had experienced adverse health conditions related to their time in detention. This includes patients “with vaccine-preventable conditions acquired in detention,” “whose medication was taken away or denied access to” and “with chronic conditions that worsened during detention.”

A 2024 report on preventable deaths in immigration detention centers similarly found that 95 percent of deaths reported by ICE between 2017 and 2021 would have been preventable if adequate medical care had been provided.

Ultimately, Homeland Security must be held responsible for its treatment of detainees. Policies requiring ICE to report on deaths, including those occurring after detainees are released, are crucial for ensuring transparency and accountability.

Jordan Liz is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University.