A total of 20 immigrants died in custody of the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE, in English) during fiscal year 2025, which concludes this Tuesday, in the midst of growing complaints about precarious conditions and deficiencies in medical care during the government of Republican President Donald Trump.
The last two deceased were the Mexican Miguel Ángel García-Hernández, 32, and the Salvadoran Norlan Guzmán Fuentes, 37, who lost their lives because of Wednesday’s shooting at ICE facilities in Dallas (Texas).
García-Hernández died this week as a consequence of the wounds received, while Guzman-Fuentes, who had been arrested last Wednesday, died on the day of the handcuffed and chained of feet and hands.
The death toll of the shooting could increase since another immigrant, in this case Venezuelan, which was in the truck that was shot next to the building is in critical condition.
Since President Trump began his massive deportation campaign, immigrants have put the conditions in which ICE keeps those detained by civil offenses, as is classified an infraction to the migratory laws of the United States.
The dead of the fiscal year 2025 is only surpassed by 2020, the year of the Covid-19 Pandemia, when 21 were recorded. But it exceeds the twelve deaths of 2024. In the previous three years 4 deaths were recorded in 2023, 3 in 2022 and 5 in 2021.
Six of this year’s dead were originally from Mexico: García-Hernández, José Manuel Sánchez Castro, 36; Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, 32; Jesús Molina Veya, 45; Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado, 68; and Ismael Ayala Uribe, 39, who died on September 22.
The case of Ayala Uribe, which was held at the Center for Advancement, in Southern California, has aroused an avalanche of criticism, for the possible medical negligence.
The family and lawyer Jesús Arias have scheduled a press conference to demand investigation into the death of the Mexican who arrived in the country being a child and was covered by the Deferred Action Program for children in childhood (DACA). Ayala Uribe “was good health, he was a healthy and very young man,” José Ayala, a relative of the deceased, told Efe.
The immigrant was arrested in a raid in a car laundry in the Los Angeles metropolitan area on August 17 and transferred to the center of advance, which came to have only five detainees in its facilities due to the dangerous conditions, according to a federal judge.
But as part of the White House Migration Offensive, the center was put into operation in its entirety again. According to ICE, Ayala Uribe was transferred one day before his death to a medical center, for “a more thorough evaluation” of an abscess in a buttock, where surgery was scheduled. But the early morning of September 22 was found unconscious in his bed and declared dead.
The concern for the deaths of the last year, 17 since Trump returned to power, has generated alarm among relatives of detainees, defenders of American immigrants and congressmen.
The senators by Georgia Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both Democrats, wrote last week a letter to the Secretary of the Department of National Security, Kristi Noem, and ICE’s head, Tood Lyons, expressing their “deep alarm” in the face of the increase in the number of deaths in Custody of ICE and demanded that officials information about the plan to “prevent” more deaths.
Two of the Mexicans, Molina Veya and Avellaneda Delgado, died in detention centers in Georgia.
The list of deaths in ICE custody in 2025 includes two immigrants from Honduras and two from Vietnam, in addition to one originally from Haiti, India, Guyana, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Colombia, Canada, China and Cuba.
Although all cases have generated repudiation, that of the Cuban Isidro Pérez, 75, raised protests in Florida for the detention of the old man who had lived almost six decades in the United States.
Honduran dies in Long Island, NY
A 42 -year -old Honduran immigrant died in Long Island, NY, while he was arrested for the United States Immigration and Customs Control Service.
ICE reported the Death of Santos Banegas Reyes In the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow, east of New York City, for an alleged failure of the “complicated by alcoholism” liver, according to the preliminary cause reported by the body in a statement.
Banegas Reyes died on September 18 just 18 hours after arriving at the detention center, where “by protocol he went through a medical review” that declared him admissible on September 17, said the government agency.
But the authorities, which clarify that the official cause of death is still under investigation, then found it unconscious in their detention unit. The agency said that the Honduran, “who entered the United States illegally four months, admitted an alcohol abuse history.”
The last time the Central American entered the United States, after deportations in 2004, 2005 and 2019, the authorities arrested him on September 17 in Long Island, where they began a deportation process.
