ICE killings: Naming the dead
At least 33 people have died at the hands of U.S. 'immigration enforcement' so far in 2026—a year on pace to break all records. These are their names.
“Without the brave heroes of ICE, we would have no enforcement, no laws, no borders and therefore—we wouldn’t even have a country.” -U.S. President Donald Trump
The United States is a nation of prisons and police—the progeny of the plantation, the reservation, the internment camp. In the Land of the Free™️, federal, state, and local governments, in partnership with private enterprise, incarcerate more people than any country on earth, at a rate surpassed in meaningful measure only by the dictatorship of El Salvador, a U.S. ally that in the past five years has more than tripled its prison population under an indefinite “state of exception,” resulting in the deaths of at least 574 people in custody and counting.1 This is called “security.”
The United States currently imprisons nearly 2 million people—disproportionally black, brown, indigenous, and poor—thanks to decades of bipartisan efforts to balloon the human captivity industry, which generates billions in profits as it forces inmates to work as de facto slaves. Many of these people, for what it’s worth, have not been convicted of crimes, and the overwhelming majority (90%-98%) were never found guilty in court but were coerced into taking pleas under threat of extreme sentences and extortionate legal fees.2 This is called “justice.”
Between 6,000 and 7,000 people die in prisons and jails around the country every year. They die by suicide, overdose, illness, homicide, execution. They die because guards beat them. They die from causes deemed “natural” in places designed to annihilate anything approximating natural life, where medical neglect, malnutrition, and toxic exposure are the norm. And even as the rate and overall number of deaths in ICE camps increase significantly under Trump—as conditions and overcrowding are intentionally made worse—the rate in jails and prisons continues to be higher. In Trump’s second term, mortality in ICE detention has risen to roughly one death per every 1,190 detainees, which extrapolates to 84 deaths per 100,000 people3 Compare this, though, to the most recent Department of Justice data from 2019 on annual deaths in federal and state custody (about 300 deaths per 100,000), and in local jails (about 170 deaths per 100,000). Even when we include the growing number of people murdered in the streets and at the border by ICE and CBP, prisons and jails are still deadlier. Meanwhile, regular police shoot and kill far more people than ICE or Border Patrol. Just yesterday, cops in Madison, Wisconsin, shot and killed a black man named Cory Ruiz while brutally beating and restraining him against the asphalt. Protests sometimes force these killings into the spotlight, but in general, they rarely make national news or social media timelines, and have been effectively normalized through the magic of criminality and the hocus-pocus of “public safety.”
There is an understandable tendency to see the recent surge in ICE murders and the expanding scale and violence of the agency’s for-profit concentration camp system as a new and aberrant kind of cruelty—especially in light of the openly eliminationist rhetoric and designs of the ruling regime. ICE, we are told, is a “rogue agency.” This, we are assured, is not who we are. But ICE and Border Patrol have always operated as a part of—not apart from—the criminal-legal system and prison-industrial complex, which inflict sufficient suffering on their own. It can be difficult, in fact, to speak distinctively about immigrant detainees and criminal inmates, or their treatment, given that ICE uses hundreds of existing jails and prisons to hold the people they abduct, and the state increasingly blurs the line between “criminal” and “alien.” As Silky Shah, the executive director of Detention Watch Network, reminds us in a recent interview with Jewish Currents: “The vast majority of detention centers in the U.S. are either former federal or state prisons or existing county jails.”
Immigration enforcement is the conjoined twin of mass incarceration, and ICE relies on the everyday cooperation of local police across blue and red jurisdictions to carry out its mission of imposing racial and, increasingly, political discipline. In the small town where I live in the U.S. Southwest, our local rapid response network has been preparing for ICE raids that have never come: people in the community are being taken by ICE, absolutely, but these kidnappings happen quietly, inside the walls of the local jail, with the help of city and county police, in a town with no 287(g) agreement, that prides itself on “welcoming immigrants.” This is called “inter-agency cooperation.”4
I’m not saying any of this to trivialize Trump’s spectacularly brutal reign of anti-immigrant terror, but to emphasize the continuities, the context, the entwined histories—to insist that, in fact, this is precisely who “we” are.5 If conditions in ICE detention warrant a U.N. investigation and “violate fundamental protections under U.S. and international human rights law,” as Human Rights Watch and others have credibly claimed, what, then, are we to make of the similar or even worse conditions in U.S. prisons and jails?
Death, we should also remember, is just one of the many inhumanities inflicted on people in ICE camps or other sites of state captivity in the U.S.—and not necessarily the worst: suffice it to say that many people in custody commit suicide rather than endure the unlivable conditions, the boredom, the disgusting food, the pain of family separation, or the promise of deportation and the horrors this often entails.6 The leading cause of death in U.S. jails, in fact, is suicide. This is called “rehabilitation.”
Talking about people as numbers is inherently dehumanizing, and statistics often obscure more than clarify. Even with incomplete or prejudicial data, though, numbers can help illustrate the magnitude of these systems that churn people’s lives apart on an industrial scale. But it’s a cold kind of storytelling. Every person who languishes behind bars, who dies in a cage or handcuffed to a hospital bed, who is gunned down by “security” forces for protecting their neighbors from being disappeared by a fascist state, who gets run over by a truck while fleeing agents in American flag Punisher-skull masks, are human beings—they have names, families, friends, memories, and futures cut violently short. This is true whether these people had social security numbers, clean criminal records, or were otherwise legible as “innocent.”
So consider this a caveat, by way of a preface, to the main point of this piece: to name the people killed to date by ICE and Border Patrol in 2026, a year well on its way to becoming the agencies’ deadliest on record.7 Read their names, and remember that every person is a universe, just as they are one among many. Note that I have not included people who died or disappeared in the borderlands as a result of “prevention through deterrence,” nor the unknowable but no doubt significant numbers of people who died or were killed after being deported, nor those whose deaths were never reported by the agencies that killed them, and whose fates we may never know.8
I have compiled this list from news reports and existing datasets. When possible, I have linked each name to a story or report with more information about the person’s life and death. If I missed someone, please note their name in the comments or let me know, and I’ll add them. For detailed reporting on deaths in ICE detention, follow the work of Andrew Free and Austin Kocher. Detention Watch Network maintains a database of deaths in ICE custody, and you can access ICE’s “Detained Alien Deaths” tracker here.9 Additionally, the ACLU and Southern Border Communities Coalition track fatal encounters with CBP, and Humane Borders and No More Deaths publish data and maps for deaths at the southern border.
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En paz descansan:
Geraldo Lunas Campos · Age 55 · Cuba · January 3, 2026
Camp East Montana, Ft. Bliss, Texas
Choked to death by guards while saying “I can’t breathe” in Spanish. ICE tried to cover up his death as a botched suicide attempt, but medical examiners ruled it a homicide.
Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres · Age 42 · Honduras · January 5, 2026
Joe Corley Processing Center, Conroe, Texas
Detained at a for-profit detention camp run by The Geo Group, Inc. Died of congestive heart failure at HCA Healthcare in Conroe, TX. According to researcher Andrew Free, “at least forty-five immigrants have died in or immediately after their release to a hospital from GEO facilities.”
Luis Beltrán Yañez-Cruz · Age 68 · Honduras · January 6, 2026
Imperial Regional Detention Facility, Calexico, California
Complained for weeks of vomiting and chest pains before ICE finally transferred him to John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Indio, CA, where he died.
Renée Nicole Macklin Good · United States · January 7, 2026
Shot in the head by ICE agent Jonathon Ross while volunteering as a legal observer in South Minneapolis during “Operation Metro Surge.” In video of the incident, Renée calmly tells Agent Ross, “I’m not mad at you,” before he shoots her in the face as she attempts to drive away. “Fucking bitch,” Ross says, immediately after shooting her.
Parady La · Age 46 · Cambodia · January 9, 2026
Federal Detention Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“Found unresponsive in his cell”; transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where he died of brain and organ failure. La’s family came to the U.S. when he was two years old, fleeing U.S.-backed war and destabilization in Cambodia.
Victor Manuel Díaz · Age 36 · Nicaragua · January 14, 2026
Camp East Montana, El Paso, Texas
“Found unresponsive in his cell.” ICE reported presumed suicide; his family disputes the account. Díaz was granted asylum but was kidnapped by ICE in Minneapolis, eight days before his death. His brother told reporters: “I think it’s very odd that every time somebody in ICE custody dies, they say that that person killed themselves… In a place where they take everything from you, and they’re watching you at all times, how in the world could that happen?”
Heber Sánchez Domínguez · Age 34 · Mexico · January 14, 2026
Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility, Lovejoy, Georgia
Found “hanging by the neck and unresponsive in his sleeping quarters” seven days after being taken into ICE custody following an arrest for driving without a license.
Zaira Vásquez Díaz · Age 27 · Mexico · January 22, 2026
Enforcement action, Río Rico, Arizona
Weeks after their wedding, Zaira and her husband Edgardo were killed after crossing the border, in a roll-over crash caused by a Border Patrol vehicle chase.
Edgardo Lucero · Age 24 · Mexico · January 22, 2026
Enforcement action, Río Rico, Arizona
Killed with his wife, Zaira, in a roll-over crash caused by a Border Patrol vehicle chase.
Alex Jeffrey Pretti · Age 37 · United States · January 27, 2026
Enforcement action, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Intensive care nurse shot multiple times by two Border Patrol agents on the streets of Minneapolis, while attempting to help two people who were being attacked by immigration agents.
Lorth Sim · Age 59 · Cambodia · February 16, 2026
Miami Correctional Facility, Bunker Hill, Indiana
“Found unresponsive in his cell.” Sim came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1989, fleeing genocide in Cambodia.
Jairo García-Hernández · Age 27 · Guatemala · February 16, 2026
Larkin Community Hospital Behavioral Health Center, Hollywood, FL
More than a year after he was taken into custody, collapsed unexpectedly and died, according to ICE.
Dr. Linda Davis · Age 52 · United States · February 16, 2026
Enforcement action · Savannah, Georgia
Killed in a motor vehicle crash caused by ICE, less than a half mile from the school where she taught students with special needs.
Nurul Amin Shah Alam · Age 56 · Rohingya refugee · February 24, 2026
Enforcement action, Buffalo, New York
Died of hypothermia and dehydration after Border Patrol agents detained him, then dumped him on the streets in near-freezing temperatures. County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
Alberto Gutiérrez Reyes · Age 48 · Mexico · February 27, 2026
Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Adelanto, California
Died in ICE custody at Victor Valley Global Medical Center after ICE repeatedly denied him medical care. “He told me he had a fever… that he was filling out paper after paper so they would take him to the doctor,” Alberto’s wife told reporters.
Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi · Age 59 · Iran · March 1, 2026
Louisiana ICE Processing Center, Angola, Louisiana
Najafabadi was incarcerated for nearly a year in a rural Louisiana prison despite suffering several chronic health conditions. He died of cardiac arrest in custody at a Mississippi hospital, six days after Trump began bombing his home country of Iran.
Emmanuel Cleeford Damas · Age 56 · Haiti · March 2, 2026
Florence Correctional Center, Florence, Arizona
Complained for days of a toothache only to be sent away by a camp nurse and told to take Ibuprofen. Died shortly thereafter from an untreated tooth infection.
Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal · Age 41 · Afghanistan · March 14, 2026
Dallas Field Office Holding Room, Dallas, Texas
Previously fought with the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Died less than 24 hours after being detained from an “an adverse drug reaction” to an unidentified substance. Advocates claim his death “smacks of a coverup,” and authorities refuse to release the autopsy report. His wife said that he relied on an inhaler for asthma, but that ICE agents rejected her attempt to give them the device when he was taken into custody.
Royer Pérez Jiménez · Age 19 · Mexico · March 16, 2026
Glades County Detention Center, Moore Haven, Florida
Royer migrated from Chiapas to the U.S. when he was 15 to support his family. ICE reported his death as an apparent suicide (“a criminal illegal alien from Mexico” was found “unconscious and unresponsive” in his cell). His uncle says the family believes he was murdered.
José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano · Age 52 · Mexico · March 25, 2026
Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Adelanto, California
Died in his cell after contracting Covid-19. “They could have saved him,” his wife told Al Jazeera. “They killed him because, rather than helping him, they didn’t do anything.”
Tuan Van Bui · Age 55 · Vietnam · April 1, 2026
Miami Correctional Facility, Bunker Hill, Indiana
Originally from Vietnam, Tuan was detained during a routine ICE check-in and was found dead in his cell months later. His family is demanding an independent investigation.
Alejandro Cabrera Clemente · Age 49 · Mexico · April 11, 2026
Winn Correctional Center, Winnfield, Louisiana
Transferred from Bradley County Jail in Tennessee to the Etowah Detention Center in Alabama, then to Winn Correctional in Louisiana, where after months of complaining to camp medical staff that he was severely ill, he was found dead in his cell.
Unnamed Victim · April 12, 2026
Enforcement action, Brownsville, Texas
Unidentified individual killed by Border Patrol vehicle chase.
Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt · Age 27 · Cuba · April 12, 2026
Federal Detention Center, Miami, Florida
Found dead in his cell in “what appeared to be a suicide attempt,” according to ICE.
Denny Adán González · Age 33 · Cuba · April 28, 2026
Stewart Detention Center, Lumpkin, Georgia
Died in solitary confinement, a punishment internationally recognized as torture. Suspected cause of death is suicide, according to ICE.
Mamuka Artmeladze · Age 43 · Georgia · June 4, 2026
Winn Correctional Center, Alexandria, Louisiana
“Found unresponsive” in his cell during a security check; died of “natural causes,” but official cause is still “under investigation.”
Félix Alcorta-Rodriguez · Age 63 · Mexico · June 19, 2026
Webb County Detention Center, Laredo, Texas
“Found unresponsive” in his cell and died of “natural causes,” but official cause of death is “under investigation.”
Adrian Andreas Florian · Age 85 · Germany · June 24, 2026
Port Isabel Detention Center, Los Fresnos, Texas
Died in ICE custody at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen, Texas.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo · Age 52 · Mexico / U.S. · July 7, 2026
Father of three, shot and killed by ICE agents while driving his co-workers to a job site in Houston.
Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva · Age 45 · Venezuela · July 13, 2026
Irwin County Detention Center, Ocilla, Georgia
Found “unresponsive” during transport from Irwin Detention Center to Folkston D. Ray ICE Processing Center. ICE reported his suspected cause of death as cardiac arrest. The family says he was denied his medications in detention.
Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero · Age 25 · Colombia · July 13, 2026
Enforcement action, Biddeford, Maine
Father of a three-year-old daughter, shot multiple times and killed by ICE agent David Brouillette while attempting to drive away.
Unnamed Victim · July 10, 2026
Enforcement action, Yuma Border Patrol station, California-Arizona border
Shot and killed by Border Patrol after allegedly attacking and injuring an agent.
Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán · Age 28 · Mexico · July 14, 2026
Enforcement action, St. Augustine, Florida
Father of two young daughters on vacation in Florida with a tourist visa, who was hit by a semi-truck and killed while running from immigration agents.
Salvadoran human rights group Socorro Jurídico Humanitario estimates that the true in-custody death toll of the state of exception is over 1,000. El Salvador’s prisons are black sites where torture is routine and deaths are deemed state secrets. Very little information gets out, and authorities are known to bury prisoners in mass graves without informing their families, as recently reported by El Faro. The U.S. incarcerates 541 people per 100,000, while El Salvador’s rate is roughly 1,659 per 100,000. Only three countries incarcerate slightly more people per-capita than the U.S.: Turkmenistan, Rwanda, and Cuba.
Notably, the death rate for unconvicted inmates in U.S. jails is actually higher than the rate for those with convictions.
Most of these deaths are caused by what human rights groups term “medical neglect,” and what journalist John Washington—an expert on immigration enforcement and the author, most recently, of How to Close a Camp: Dispatches from the Fight Against Immigrant Detention, out this month from Haymarket Books—argues should more accurately be described as “medical torture.” A 2024 report published by the ACLU, American Oversight, and Physicians for Human Rights found that 95% of deaths in ICE detention between 2017 and 2022 were likely preventable, had ICE provided clinically appropriate care.
For more on this, I highly recommend subscribing to Jessica Pishko’s newsletter and reading her most recent post.
By we, of course, I mean they. Don’t blame me for this shit, I voted for the Unabomber
We should bear in mind, however, that some deaths ruled suicides may actually be homicides.
Last year tied with 2004 for most deaths in ICE detention (32). To read the names and stories of people who died in ICE camps in 2025, see this recent report from Human Rights Watch.
There is no doubt in my mind, given the testimonies I’ve hear and everything I know about these agencies, that Border Patrol kills people in the desert and never reports it, that ICE kills people in detention and never reports it. We know for a fact, to cite a recent case, that ICE attempted to cover up the murder of Geraldo Lunas Campos, who was choked to death by guards at Camp East Montana in Texas.
Note that in June, ICE stopped reporting deaths of recently released detainees.
Thank you Max. avantí!