ICE Deaths Reach Their Highest Level in Decades

From Sofia Leyba's 8-28-26 COUNTERPUNCH Op-Ed piece entitled “We’re Getting Awfully Used to ICE’s Abuses”:

Jose Chajon-Raxon, an immigrant from Guatemala, died this August at Delaney Hall, a controversial ICE facility in New Jersey. His death marks more than 50 deaths in ICE custody since President Trump took office last year.

Despite all the controversies, ICE keeps killing people — a sentence that should never feel normal. We should never find ourselves counting the days between deaths or waiting for the next headline. But somehow, we have.

Earlier this year it was Renee Good, then Alex Pretti. This summer it was Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Before them were Silviero Villegas Gonzalez and Ruben Ray Martinez. Those are only the names we know— many others will never make national news [...].

In June 2026, ICE arrested more than 43,000 people, about 1,400 every day. By July, nearly 68,000 people were being held in immigration detention. The overwhelming majority of those arrested had no criminal convictions.

This includes over 6,000 children. Children who are spending their birthdays behind bars. Children who should be back in school, safe and protected. Many have been detained for 100 days or more — five times longer than the 20-day limit for detaining immigrant children.

They’re being held in facilities like Delaney and others, where human rights groups have warned repeatedly that dangerous conditions are leading to preventable deaths. ICE deaths reached their highest level in decades last year, and this year is on track to be no better [...].

No matter where you were born, what political party you belong to, or whether you support stricter immigration enforcement, no government should have the power to kill or imprison people with so little accountability. 

To read Leyba's entire article, click HERE.