ICE lists 36 detainee deaths in fiscal 2026, most since 2018

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lists 36 deaths in its custody for fiscal year 2026, more than in any other year on the agency’s public death-reporting page, which goes back to fiscal 2018. The year ended Sept. 30. The page, last updated Sept. 23, records deaths from Oct. 4, 2025, through Aug. 23, 2026.

NationofChange counted the entries on ICE’s detainee death page. Fiscal year 2025 has 24 entries, running from Oct. 27, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025. Fiscal 2024 has 12. Fiscal 2020 has 21, and every other year since 2018 has 8 or fewer: 8 in 2019, 6 in 2018, 5 in 2021, 4 in 2023 and 3 in 2022. The 36 deaths in fiscal 2026 are 12 more than the next-highest year, a 50 percent increase over fiscal 2025.

How the count moved through the year

The page lists 29 deaths from Oct. 4, 2025, through April 12, 2026. That matches the count NPR reported on April 17, when it said the total had passed 2004’s toll of 28, the previous record in the government data it reviewed. The page lists seven more deaths after April 12: on April 28, June 4, June 19, June 24, July 13, Aug. 1 and Aug. 23.

December 2025 has seven entries, the most for any month in the year: Dec. 3, 5, 6, 12, 14 (two) and 15.

Reporting requirements and delays

Congress requires ICE to make reports on in-custody deaths public within 90 days, according to the page. NPR found in April that the agency’s site lagged in updating fiscal 2026 numbers. On April 13, Georgia Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock wrote to acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. They noted that of 49 deaths in custody since January 2025, “ICE has issued an interim death notice within 48 hours in only 15 cases,” NPR reported.

Lyons said at a House hearing on April 16 that “we are reporting” and “working on that timeline,” NPR reported. Because the page was last updated Sept. 23, any death after that date would not necessarily appear yet under the 90-day rule.

What officials have said

The Department of Homeland Security denied in a statement to NPR that there had been a spike in deaths and attributed the increase to the large number of people in detention. The statement said that as of April 16, “death rates in custody under the Trump administration are 0.009 percent of the detained population.” It added that ICE provides migrants with access to medical care.

Lyons told the House hearing that the number of deaths was high this fiscal year “because we do have the highest amount in detention that ICE has ever had since its inception in 2003.” He said the agency spent “almost half a billion dollars last fiscal year” to ensure people have proper care. “No death is what we want,” Lyons said.

NPR reported that detentions were up more than 70 percent under President Donald Trump compared with the first year of the Biden administration, and that about 60,000 people were in immigration detention in April.

Individual cases

The page lists Geraldo Lunas Campos with a date of death of Jan. 3, 2026. DHS initially said he died at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, after “medical distress,” NPR reported. The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled his death a homicide due to “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression,” and the FBI was investigating, according to NPR as of April. Chris Benoit, an attorney for the family, told NPR that Lunas Campos had lived in the United States for decades.

The page also lists Aled Carbonell Betancourt, who died April 12. An initial ICE report said he was found unresponsive in his cell in Miami and listed the cause as “presumed suicide,” with the official cause under investigation, NPR reported.

The page shows the most recent entry as Lianyong Wei, who died Aug. 23.

Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California and Camp East Montana had each reported three deaths as of April, the most of any facility, NPR reported.