ICE detainees are dying by suicide at an ‘alarming’ rate, an AP investigation finds
The deaths exposed delayed mental health care, missed screenings and other lapses across a detention system that has grown to 60,000 people, AP found.
- An Associated Press investigation found at least 10 detainees have died by suicide since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025 and ordered ICE to increase arrests and deportations, with seven deaths since October marking the most in any fiscal year.
- The suicide spike coincides with ICE's detained population surging by 50% to 60,000 during Trump's second term, with experts saying authorities are failing to properly oversee tens of thousands of immigrants swept up in the administration's aggressive deportation strategy.
- AP's examination found ICE detention centers repeatedly violated their own standards, with staff ignoring distress signs, delaying mental health treatment, and failing to monitor at-risk detainees; three facilities failed to meet the 12-hour screening requirement for assessments.
- Department of Homeland Security acting assistant secretary Lauren Bies said suicide deaths remain extremely rare, though the 10 deaths represent nearly 20% of the 51 people who died in ICE custody since January 2025, and seven of those who died had no violent crime records.
- Dr. Sanjay Basu, a University of California-San Francisco epidemiologist, said 'Something is going profoundly wrong from any kind of public health or mental health perspective,' while Dr. Homer Venters, former chief medical officer of New York City jails, noted well-run facilities should have few suicides.
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Many ICE detainees are dying by suicide
Detainees in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement are taking their own lives at a pace that's unprecedented in the agency’s two-decade history, an Associated Press Investigation has found. The investigation revealed that at least 10 ICE detainees have…
Minst tio ICE-fångar har tagit sitt liv sedan Donald Trump tillträdde som president för andra gången. Det är en ökning som överstiger tillväxten av antalet fångar, visar en granskning av AP. – Något är allvarligt fel ur ett folkhälsoperspektive eller ett psykiatristikt perspective, hunter Sanjay Basu, epidemiolog vid University of California- San Francisco, till nyhetsbyrån.
Brayan Rayo Garzon was distressed. After being arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), he began his fourth day of solitary confinement in a Missouri prison while he was fighting fevers and chills caused by the COVID-19. His mental health treatment application had been postponed, records show, and the staff forbade him to make his nocturnal call to his mother as a precaution to prevent the spread of the disease. He begg…
An investigation by The Associated Press revealed an “alarming” increase in suicides at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers in the United States, amid complaints of failures in medical care, mental health and supervision of immigrants in custody.
The number of suicides by people in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is unprecedented in the agency's two decades of existence, highlighting a problem experts call lapses in attention and oversight, according to an Associated Press investigation released today.
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