Alarming surge in suicides among ICE detainees, investigation reveals | US immigration

Brayan Rayo Garzon was distraught. Detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he was on his fourth day of isolation in a Missouri prison as he battled the fever and chills of Covid.

His request for mental health treatment was delayed, and staff prohibited Rayo from calling his mother every night to prevent the spread of the disease, records show.

He begged the guards in handwritten notes to arrange a meeting with him. “I feel in my heart that you are very worried about me,” he wrote in Spanish.

A guard took the note and walked away. Jail records show he was found unconscious in his cell within an hour. As a result of the autopsy, it was determined that he committed suicide.

Rayo’s death in April 2025 was the first suicide in a surge among ICE detainees that has alarmed public health officials and prison experts. They said the unprecedented number of suicide deaths is an indication that authorities are failing to properly oversee the detention of tens of thousands of immigrants drawn into the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation strategy.

An Associated Press investigation found that at least 10 detainees, all men, have died by suicide since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, according to ICE data, autopsy reports, coroner’s verdicts and police records; This is an increase that far exceeds the increase in the prison population. Since October, seven deaths have been classified as suicides; this is already the highest number for any fiscal year in the institution’s history. ICE typically records one or no such deaths per year.

Dr. D., an epidemiologist at the University of California-San Francisco, author of a study documenting increased death and suicide rates among ICE detainees. “From any public health or mental health perspective, something is going terribly wrong,” Sanjay Basu said. “This is one of those alarming, sudden increases.”

The AP found that nine of the dead were Hispanic men who came to the United States from four countries. One of the men was a Chinese national. Their average age was 32. While Trump called those at risk of deportation the “worst of the worst,” seven in 10 had no record of violent crimes in the United States.

Suicides account for nearly one-fifth of the 51 deaths in ICE custody since January 2025. The majority of these deaths are from natural causes, and experts say most of them could have been prevented with timely medical care.

Lauren Bis, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said suicide deaths in ICE custody are “extremely rare.”

Bis said detention staff follow protocols to protect detainees who show signs of self-harm, and ICE requires annual suicide prevention training. He said detainees receive comprehensive health care, including mental health services.

Reacting to the AP’s investigation, Colombian President Gustavo Petro wrote in a post on X on Wednesday that the country’s foreign ministry should issue a formal protest over Rayo’s death and that the U.S. government “should consider how its immigration policy is killing Americans and Latin Americans.”

ICE is responsible for the welfare of detainees once they are in custody, and experts say there should be very few suicides in well-run prisons. This is possible because staff can take steps to reduce the likelihood of detainees harming themselves by identifying people at risk, caring for them and monitoring them closely, experts said.

The AP’s investigation found that ICE detention centers were repeatedly inadequate, in violation of ICE’s own standards.

A review of 10 suicide cases found that the men died in ICE’s detention network, including centers long run by private contractors and county jails that have recently become ICE partners. The AP found that staff at the facilities ignored signs of distress, delayed mental health treatment and failed to monitor detainees already considered at risk. Detainees were also allowed access to materials that could be used to harm them, according to an AP review of ICE inspection reports and death records.

In some cases, they imprison distressed detainees in solitary confinement, which can further increase feelings of humiliation and helplessness, experts say.

ICE has repeatedly maintained that it screens detainees for medical, dental and mental health problems within 12 hours of their arrival.

At least three of the nine facilities where ICE detainees died by suicide struggle to meet that standard, according to ICE inspection reports and prison records.

Dr. Dr., the former chief medical officer of New York City prisons who has previously consulted with ICE on preventing detainee deaths. Homer Venters said the increase in suicides is terrible.

Venters said the increase “reflects failures in the operation of the system and, in particular, failures in ensuring that the initial stages of detention occur in a way that ensures that people are not adequately assessed.” “And if red flags are picked up during this screening, action is not taken to reduce the risk of preventable death.”

Among those who took their own lives was a 19-year-old Mexican teenager who was detained after making a misdemeanor traffic stop while riding a scooter.

Another was a 36-year-old restaurant worker who lost contact with relatives in Nicaragua after ICE detained him in Minnesota and sent him to a crowded camp in Texas. The third was a 45-year-old man who had repeatedly crossed the US-Mexico border illegally and had a lengthy criminal record.

Rayo, who committed suicide after begging to speak to his mother, was a man who served in the Colombian army and worked as a street vendor in his home country. A week after he turned 26 in 2023, his family crossed the US border in California. Records and interviews show he was detained for three months before being allowed to settle in with his family in St. Louis.

Court records show he was arrested on suspicion of a crime in March 2025 and died at the Phelps county jail in Rolla, Missouri, about 100 miles from St. Louis.

Five of those who died by suicide were in centers run by ICE’s longtime detention partners CoreCivic and GEO Group. A sixth person died at a camp run by an inexperienced contractor that ICE replaced. Three died in sheriff-run jails and one died in a federal prison.

“We are deeply saddened by the death of any individual in our care and take it very seriously,” said CoreCivic spokesman Brian Todd.

GEO Group spokesman Christopher Ferreira said the company trains its staff in suicide prevention and aims to “maintain a safe and secure environment in accordance with standards and requirements established by the federal government.” Officials at the three prisons either declined to comment or did not respond to messages.

Other suicides have occurred in ICE custody at facilities such as the Ste Genevieve county jail in Missouri, the Moshannon Valley processing center in Pennsylvania, and Camp East Montana, Texas.