ICE Detainee Suicides Surge as Deaths in Custody Hit Record Highs, Report Shows
Immigrants held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are dying by suicide at an alarming rate, a new Associated Press investigation has found, with at least 10 such deaths recorded since President Donald Trump returned to office — seven of them occurring since October 2025 alone. The pace far outstrips the growth in the detainee population, which has surged by roughly 50% to 60,000 under the administration's expanded enforcement push.
The report, published Wednesday, comes as overall deaths in ICE custody have reached record highs. According to ICE data, 18 detainees have died so far in fiscal year 2026, and 48 have died since Trump took office in January 2025. By comparison, the final full year of the Biden administration saw just one suicide in ICE detention, and none in 2023. The last time the agency recorded more than one suicide in a fiscal year was 2020, the final year of Trump’s first term, when six were reported.
The White House referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. In a statement, DHS disputed that there has been a spike, claiming detainees are receiving “the best healthcare they have received their entire lives” and that “suicide remains extremely rare in detention under the Trump administration.”
The most recent reported death occurred April 28, when 33-year-old Cuban national Denny Adan Gonzalez was found hanging in his cell. ICE said the suspected cause was suicide, though an official determination remains pending.
Medical experts and epidemiologists who reviewed the data for the AP described the trend as deeply troubling. “Something is going profoundly wrong from any kind of public health or mental health perspective,” said Dr. Sanjay Basu, a University of California-San Francisco epidemiologist who co-authored a study on rising mortality and suicide rates among ICE detainees. “This is one of those alarming, sudden increases.”
The AP analysis found that nine of the 10 suicides involved Hispanic men, and one a Chinese citizen, with an average age of 32. Notably, seven of the men had no record of violent crimes in the U.S., undercutting administration claims that detainees are among “the worst of the worst.”
The report has triggered outrage both domestically and abroad. Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the suicide of Brayan Rayo Garzon, a Colombian man who died April 8, 2025, after being held in isolation for four days at a Missouri jail. Rayo’s request for mental health treatment had been postponed, and staff had barred him from making his nightly call to his mother as a precaution against illness spread, records show. Petro called the facility an “ICE concentration camp” and said his foreign ministry would file a formal diplomatic protest.
Similarly, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum ordered her diplomats to conduct daily consular visits to ICE facilities in April, denouncing conditions as “incompatible with human rights standards and the protection of human life.”
The report arrives amid escalating protests over conditions at a New Jersey immigration detention center called Delaney Hall in Newark. Democratic lawmakers who visited the facility this week reported “inhumane conditions,” including a pregnant woman unable to receive medical care and a man with stage 3 lung cancer going untreated. Sen. Andy Kim, who was pepper-sprayed Monday while trying to de-escalate a confrontation between protesters and federal law enforcement, said detainees are engaged in a hunger strike now in its fourth day — a claim federal authorities deny.
“We will shut this center down. We will shut it down,” Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York, the first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress, said after entering the facility Wednesday with other lawmakers.
Among the most haunting details from the AP investigation is a note written by Brayan Rayo the day he died, addressed to a guard, pleading to speak with his mother. A photo of the note, preserved by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, was published by the AP. “I know you have family, and you know that they worry about us,” he wrote in Spanish. “God bless you.” He added, “I feel in my heart that she’s very worried about me.”
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