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Horrifying Report Showcases Dire Conditions in ICE Facilities

2 13
06.05.2025

President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have proved fatal for seven people who were detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, as part of the president’s massive deportation efforts.

Of the seven immigrants who have died in ICE custody over the past three months, the agency has only published reports on three of the deaths, which were all reviewed by the Spanish newspaper El Paīs.

According to the outlet, all three individuals arrived in detention in good condition, and saw their health rapidly decline.

Makysm Chernyak, a 44 year-old Ukrainian man, was arrested in January on assault charges and transferred to ICE detention in Miami where he was found to be totally healthy, with the exception of an elevated heart rate. For a week in mid-February he was in and out of the clinic, after reporting nasal congestion and a cough. On February 18, he was found vomiting and trembling in his cell, and while awaiting transfer to the hospital he suffered six seizures, and vomited blood. Doctors shortly discovered he’d had a hemorrhagic stroke and was determined to be brain dead. He was declared dead two days later.

Marie Blaise, a 44 year-old Haitian woman was detained on February 12 in the U.S. Virgin Islands when she tried to board a flight to North Carolina without a valid immigration visa. Another woman detained in Deerfield Beach detention center told the Miami Herald that Blaise began to complain of chest pains on April 25. She was given some pills and told to rest, but hours later she awoke screaming in pain. Later that night she was announced dead, and her cause of death is still under investigation, according to El Paīs.

Last week, Florida Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the only Haitian American member of Congress, slammed ICE over Blaise’s death. “Marie had been complaining about chest pain for hours,” she said on the House floor. “They gave her some pills and told her to go lie down. Unfortunately, Marie never woke up.”

ICE is required to report on all in-custody deaths within 90 days, but Cherfilus-McCormick called for a “full, independent investigation” into Blaise’s death. Chernyak and Blaise are two of three immigrants who died in detention in Florida. The other was Genry Ruiz Guillén, a 29-year-old Honduran detained at the Krome center in Florida who died on January 23. Others died in custody in Texas, Arizona, Puerto Rico, and Missouri.

In a statement, ICE insisted that it was providing proper care to detainees. “All people in ICE custody receive medical, dental and mental health screening and 24-hour emergency care at each detention facility,” it said.

A 2024 report from the American Civil Liberties Union found that 95 percent of deaths at ICE-operated facilities between 2017 and 2021 could have been prevented “if appropriate medical care had been provided.” In a whopping 88 percent of the deaths reviewed as part of the report, medical staff at the ICE detention centers had “made incorrect, inappropriate, or incomplete diagnoses.”

President Donald Trump just gave a completely incoherent explanation for his impromptu plan to reopen Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay.

“How will you use it? How did you come up with the idea?” a reporter asked the president on Monday.

“Well, I guess I was supposed to be a moviemaker. We’re talking—we started with the moviemaking, and it will end,” Trump replied. “It represents something very strong, very powerful, in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, I would say, the ultimate, right? Alcatraz, Sing Sing, and Alcatraz, the movies.

“But uh, it’s right now a museum, believe it or not. Lotta people go there. It housed the most violent criminals in the world, and nobody ever escaped. One person almost got there, but they, as you know the story, they found his clothing rather badly ripped up, and uh, it was a lot of shark bites, a lot of problems. Nobody’s ever escaped from Alcatraz, and just represented something strong having to do with law and order; we need law and order in this country.”

Trump said he hoped to “bring [Alcatraz] back in large form, add a lot.”

“It sort of represents something that’s both horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable, weak,” he added. “It’s got a lot of qualities that are interesting.”

Despite his surplus of adjectives, Trump’s response didn’t quite answer the question.

Some have suggested that Trump was inspired by Escape From Alcatraz, the 1979 film that aired on South Florida’s WLRN on Saturday night (Trump was staying in Palm Beach). Shortly after announcing plans to reopen Alcatraz, Trump also posted on Truth Social that he was planning to place tariffs on foreign-made movies.

This is certainly not the first time the president has had trouble answering questions. Just last week, when asked about his administration’s punitive measures against Harvard University, Trump began ranting about fictional riots of Trump supporters in Harlem.

The White House’s social media post on Friday night depicting Donald Trump as the pope was apparently “just a little fun,” according to the president.

“Actually, my wife thought it was cute,” Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to a seemingly AI-generated image in which he appears dressed in white papal attire. “Actually, I would not be able to be married, though. That wouldn’t be allowed. To the best of my knowledge, popes aren’t getting married. Not that we know of, no.”

Still, personally acknowledging that he and his wife witnessed and shared the bizarre and offensive image wasn’t enough to deem the image real.

“I think it’s the fake news media, you know,” Trump said. “They’re........

© New Republic