Report: Deaths in ICE Custody Rose Sharply During Trump’s Second Term, Groups Say

A joint report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights says at least 52 people died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody during the first 500 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, and that the death rate rose far faster than the detained population. The groups said ICE’s limited and delayed public reporting has also made outside oversight increasingly difficult.

The report, titled “Dying in Detention: Rising Deaths in an Expanding US Immigration Detention System,” covers Jan. 20, 2025, through June 4, 2026. According to the groups, the mortality rate in ICE custody has more than doubled since Trump’s second term began, is nearly four times the rate under the Biden administration and more than two and a half times the rate during Trump’s first administration.

“People are dying in ICE custody at the highest rate in many years, even after accounting for the surge in detention,” said Brian Root, senior technology and human rights advisor at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch said its statistical analysis examined deaths in ICE custody from Oct. 1, 2015, through June 4, 2026. The report says that during the first year of the current administration, the number of people held in ICE detention rose 77%, from about 40,000 to more than 71,000, while the annual mortality rate rose about 140%. Physicians for Human Rights said it separately conducted a medical analysis of the 39 deaths reported during that first year, from Jan. 20, 2025, to Jan. 19, 2026.

A central finding of the report is that public accountability is hampered by gaps in ICE’s disclosures. Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights said ICE policy calls for a public notice of a death within 48 hours and a more detailed report within 30 days, but that the agency often misses those deadlines and releases incomplete information. “ICE so severely limits the information it provides to Congress, families, and the public that oversight is nearly impossible,” said Dr. Katherine Peeler, co-author of the report, assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights.

The report also points to a rise in apparent suicides. Citing ICE records, it says there were seven apparent suicides from Jan. 20, 2025, to Jan. 19, 2026, compared with one reported suicide in 2024.

Among the cases highlighted was that of Maksym Chernyak, a 44-year-old from Ukraine. The report says he suffered a hemorrhagic stroke in custody and that staff failed to respond promptly to clear signs of a medical emergency. The groups said those delays “almost certainly contributed” to his death.

Another case involved Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, 32, who the report says died in ICE custody in 2025 after a Covid-19 diagnosis and 12 days in isolation. According to the report, his family filed a Freedom of Information Act request in October 2025 and a lawsuit in December 2025 seeking records, but as of early May 2026 had still not received additional information.

The findings land amid broader scrutiny of detention deaths and oversight. On Feb. 13, 2026, a group of senators led by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for information about rising deaths, detention conditions and oversight failures. Multiple reports and congressional sources had already described 2025 as the deadliest year in ICE custody since at least 2004.

Transparency has become a separate point of concern. On June 4, The Washington Post reported that ICE had stopped publicly reporting deaths that occur within 30 days of a person’s release from custody, a policy change that DHS confirmed. That shift does not affect the new report’s count of deaths in ICE custody, but it adds to concerns raised by watchdog groups that public visibility into immigration detention is shrinking.

The report calls on DHS and Congress to reduce reliance on detention, require independent investigations of every in-custody death, publicly release death reviews and autopsies, and create independent oversight mechanisms with the power to enforce standards. The groups’ count reflects deaths in ICE custody as defined in their report; counts of ICE-related deaths can vary depending on reporting scope and definitions.