ICE cannot be allowed to hide its death count

On June 4, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it will no longer investigate or report the deaths of those recently released from detention centers.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, this policy update is “common sense.” Although ICE “remains committed to transparency regarding detainee deaths,” the agency is “not responsible when an individual passes away weeks after leaving their custody.”

Despite this statement, there are important reasons to be concerned. First, ICE routinely releases people far from their homes without any means to get back. For instance, in 2025, Jesus Ramirez Ramos was detained in Salina, Kansas and transported to a detention center in Michigan. After nine months of confinement, he was given dirty clothes and told that his phone had been lost. If not for a group of activists who support people recently released from detention centers, he would have been stranded with no money and no way to contact his loved ones.

Ramos’s case is not unique. According to The Marshall Project, within the first year of President Trump’s second term, the number of people transferred five or more times has more than tripled. The American Friends Service Committee likewise reports that, in many cases, ICE’s online locator tool fails to show where people are being detained or whether they have been transferred. Friends and family are left to wonder where in the country (or in the world) their loved ones have ended up.

Second, people have been seriously injured under ICE’s custody. In January, amid Operation Metro Surge, ICE agents dropped off Alberto Castañeda at a Minnesota hospital with broken bones in his face and skull. Officers........

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