This fiscal year, 22 immigrants died in detention – 10 between January and June. At the Everglades facility nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” advocates say more than 1,200 detainees are missing, with families and lawyers unable to locate them.
Of a record 59,762 people held in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention as of September 21, 42,755 or about 71% have no criminal conviction, according to TRAC.
You may like ‘Alligator Alcatraz’: Detainees describe worms in food, sewage near beds
‘Cruelty is the point’
“I’ve talked to hundreds of detained asylum seekers, and I was frequently struck by how they’re treated like incarcerated criminals, despite many having no criminal record,” said Heather Hogan, policy and practice counsel at American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), at an American Community Media briefing.
Heather Hogan, policy and practice counsel, American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), discusses the treatment detained asylum seekers face, sharing what she has witnessed as an asylum officer with USCIS.
“The contract security guards and ICE officers refer to immigration detainees as ‘bodies,’ which is a common term in incarcerated situations, and that’s the commonplace term among DHS officials,” continued Hogan, who previously worked as an asylum officer and interviewer with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Describing a typical day for detainees, she said “I was usually shocked by how early they were woken up and fed breakfast. It was 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 in the morning. By the time I talked to them, they were tired, they were hungry, and this is a life-altering interview to determine if they potentially qualified for a hearing in front of an immigration judge.”
“The government is trying to maximize the punitive nature of detention and make the conditions so difficult that people would rather leave than pursue relief,” she explained.
In the past week alone, an AILA member attorney reported that a detained woman withdrew her habeas petition after a mental breakdown.
Another young woman “who one of my asylum officer colleagues had interviewed for a credible fear interview — she committed suicide just a few days after,” Hogan said. “Right now, the cruelty is the point. Separating people from their families, taking them away from their communities — the trauma is the point to get people to leave the United States.”
What’s not being reported?
An April 2025 report from the California Justice Department regarding ICE detention centers in the state found deficiencies in suicide prevention, health care recordkeeping, staffing and mental health care across all facilities statewide.
The 2025 fiscal year saw 22 deaths in ICE custody nationwide.
Over half of those dead were Latino and most deaths took place in Florida, home to the Krome processing center in Miami, where advocates say that overcrowding and understaffing conditions are particularly dire.
These deaths are the second-highest on record, exceeded only by the 2004 fiscal year, which saw 32 deaths.
“This is a deadly time … but one of the very common phenomena as a result of the patchwork of information that ICE maintains about deaths in custody is that it’s very hard for us to get authoritative information in one place,” said Andrew Free, an Atlanta-based lawyer and investigative journalist who has been documenting deaths in Department of Homeland Services (DHS) custody through his Substack DetentionKills since 2017.
“ICE is actually comparatively better than a lot of the prison jail systems in the United States. ICE tells us when a person dies and they release a report, subject either to affirmative release or the Freedom of Information Act,” he explained. “But do we believe ICE’s numbers?”
Cross-referencing federal death data collected by the Deportation Research Project with death data collected by states with mandatory custody death reporting, Free found that of people subject to an ICE detainer — a request from ICE to a local, state or federal custodian to detain the person at the end of their custody period — there were over 400 unreported deaths since fiscal year 2009.
“There are people who are dying in state or local custody whose deaths are never being reported publicly, and they’re never being investigated. And so what is the true number of people dying in ICE custody? I don’t actually know, and I don’t think anybody does,” said Free.
‘Due process is at the core’
“The lack of transparency that we’ve seen is very, very unique to the Trump administration 2.0,” said Yannick Gill, senior counsel for refugee advocacy at Human Rights First. “What is unique with this administration is the brazen disregard of even members of Congress and elected officials gaining access.”
As of July, at least 12 Democratic members of Congress have been denied entry to federal immigration facilities.
Late that month, 12 Democrats from the House of Representatives filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal district court alleging that statutory provisions adopted by Congress in 2019 bar DHS from using federal funds to block Congress members from entering DHS detention facilities for the purposes of oversight.
“Due process is at the core of this, and with what we’re seeing in … non-citizens facing potential torture and third country removals, having their rights completely disregarded with very little oversight,” said Gill. “This is where things become a little bit more political than legal, because of the characterization of all of these individuals being deported as the ‘worst of the worst,’ as ‘terrorists,’ as ‘members of cartels.’”
As of September, nearly a dozen countries — including El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Ghana, Eswatini, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda — have agreed to receive deportees from the US with no prior ties to these nations.
Last February, nearly 300 migrants from 10 mostly Asian countries were held in one Panama hotel.
Last March, over 200 migrants alleged to be members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador known as the Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT).
“We’re seeing a reprise of a 9/11 sentiment where human and civil rights are taking the back burner under the guise of fighting terror,” Gill explained. “When we look at immigration policy, one of the biggest disservices is to think that it’s strictly an immigrant issue … and Trump is taking advantage of this and capitalizing it.”
“We have seen organizations and individuals who have spoken out against Palestine. Black Lives Matter, LGBTQIA+ rights — and most recently, the death of Charlie Kirk — all end up within the purview of the Trump administration,” he added. “Real implications that go far beyond the immigration rights movement will ultimately impact our civil and human rights, regardless of our nationality.” (American Community Media)
The post Deaths, disappearances, neglect rise at US immigrant detention camps appeared first on USNewsRank.
Discover more from USNewsRank
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.