Published on 6/25/2026
The number of deaths in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers increased during President Donald Trump’s second term, with 52 deaths recorded in its first 500 days, according to a report by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights.
This was stated in a report entitled “Death in Detention: The Rise in Deaths in the Expanded US Immigration Detention System,” published by the Human Rights Watch website on Thursday.
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The two organizations said in the report that the death rate in immigration detention has risen sharply with the expansion of the compulsory immigration detention system and the absence of effective internal oversight.
According to the report, at least 52 people have died in detention since the beginning of the current Trump administration, while the authorities “hide” much information from Congress, the families of the deceased, and public opinion, which makes “oversight almost impossible.”
Human Rights Watch conducted a quantitative analysis of deaths in ICE detention between October 1, 2015, and June 4, 2026, to monitor the evolution of the death rate. Physicians for Human Rights also provided a medical analysis of 39 deaths that occurred in the first year of Trump’s second term.
Serious deficiency
The report documented individual cases that it believed showed serious deficiencies in health care inside detention centers, including the case of Ukrainian Maxim Chernyak (44 years old), who suffered a stroke after “clear signs” of an emergency appeared before detention staff, but they delayed transferring him to advanced care, which the report believed “likely contributed” to his death.
In another case, Lorenzo Antonio Patriz Vargas (32 years old) died in 2025 after being diagnosed with Covid-19 and remaining in isolation for 12 days. The report indicated that his family filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act and then a lawsuit to obtain records of his detention, treatment, and the circumstances of his death, but as of May 2026, they had not received additional information.
According to the report, the number of detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement centers increased by 77% during the first year of Trump’s second term, from about 40,000 to more than 71,000, while the death rate in detention increased by 140%.
The report said that the US Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and their contractors may be in violation of US obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture, due to detention conditions and poor medical care.
The report stressed that the American authorities have a legal and moral duty to protect the lives of detainees and to provide a public disclosure of every death.
