NEW YORK: The rate of people dying in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody has reached its highest level in over a decade amid US President Donald Trump´s crackdown on immigrants, rights groups said on Thursday.
At least 52 deaths have been reported in ICE holding facilities since Trump´s second term began in January 2025, according to a joint report by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights.
Trump has made combating illegal immigration a top priority of his second term, with authorities rounding up thousands of people and expanding detention centers.
From January 2025 to January 2026, the annual mortality rate in ICE custody was up 140 percent compared to a year earlier -- an increase disproportionate to the higher detainee population, the report said.
The death rate is nearly four times that seen under Trump´s predecessor Joe Biden, and over two times higher than during the Republican´s first term from 2017 to 2021.
“We have seen the death rate in ICE custody skyrocket,” Reagan Williams, a HRW researcher who co-authored the report, told AFP.
“Instead of taking action to address this crisis and protect the lives and health of those in custody, we´ve seen the administration pour its resources into subjecting more and more people to prolonged detention.”
