Ismael Ayala-Uribe, a Mexican-born man brought to the United States as a child, died on September 22, 2025, while in ICE custody at a detention centre in Adelanto, California. He was arrested on August 17 while working at a car wash. A coroner's report found the cause of death was complications from an abscess in his pelvic region. His mother, Lucia Uribe, told Al Jazeera that her son had complained of fever and bloodshot eyes in the days before his death. 'Mom, I'm not going to make it,' she recalls him saying. She said insufficient medical treatment allowed a preventable infection to become fatal.
Ismael's case is one of many. At least 33 people died in ICE custody in 2025, according to agency statistics, and at least 26 have died so far in 2026. A joint report by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights in June found that immigrants in ICE custody are dying at a rate roughly three times higher than under former President Joe Biden. The annualised mortality rate rose from 2.24 per 10,000 detainees under Biden to 6.38 per 10,000 during Trump's second term.
Reagan Williams, a human rights lawyer and researcher involved in the report, said that the increase in overall detentions does not explain the spike in deaths. Nicholas Cuneo, an expert in immigrant health with Physicians for Human Rights, added: 'What has often been claimed is that the overall detained population is going up. That clearly is not proportional to the detained population.'
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has publicly denied a spike, stating in a June social media post that the death rate has remained 'consistent with data over the last decade' and that there has been 'NO spike in deaths.' The department pointed to the percentage of deaths relative to the overall detained population. However, watchdog groups warn that this framing may be misleading as the raw number of fatalities has increased.