AUSTIN, TEXAS — Twenty-nine people have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since the start of the federal fiscal year on October 1, according to government data, the highest toll since fiscal year 2004, when 28 detainees died. The Department of Homeland Security attributed the rise to the large number of people in detention and denied a spike in deaths.

About 60,000 people are currently in immigration detention, and detentions are up more than 70% under President Trump compared with the first year of the Biden administration. ICE has the highest number of detainees since its inception in 2003.

As of April 16, the death rate in ICE custody under the Trump administration is 0.009% of the detained population, DHS said. The agency said ICE provides migrants in its custody with access to medical care and spent almost half a billion dollars last fiscal year to ensure detainees receive proper care. Detainees receive a complete physical examination within 14 days of admission and are seen by a medical professional within 24 hours.

The most recent death was of Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, a 27-year-old Cuban man held in ICE custody in Miami, Florida. He was found unresponsive in his cell on the morning of April 12. An ICE report lists the cause of his death as a presumed suicide, and the official cause of death remains under investigation.

Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, California, and Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, have each reported three detainee deaths, the most of any ICE facility. ICE initial reports attributed six detainee deaths at the two facilities to suicide, alcohol withdrawal, liver failure, and kidney failure. The El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office ruled one death at Camp East Montana a homicide, and the FBI is investigating.

Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on April 16, 2026, examined ICE detainee mortality rates from fiscal year 2004 through January 19, 2026. Fiscal year 2004 had an annualized death rate of 127.7 per 100,000 detainees. From October 2025 through January 19, 2026, there were 18 deaths in ICE custody, an annualized death rate of 88.9 per 100,000 detainees. Ten more people have died in ICE custody since January 19, 2026. ICE reduced the detail in its public detainee death reports from about three pages to approximately four paragraphs.

Michele Heisler, the medical director at Physicians for Human Rights and a professor of internal medicine and public health at the University of Michigan, and Katherine R. Peeler, a medical advisor at Physicians for Human Rights, wrote in an accompanying editorial that the findings suggest systemic weaknesses in ICE medical care, mental health protection, and mortality review for detainees dependent on the state.