By Felicia J. Persaud
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Jan. 22, 2026: The killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old American citizen and Minnesota mother, by a U.S. ICE officer has rightly ignited national outrage. But while cameras remain trained on the most visible flashpoints, people are also dying – quietly, repeatedly – inside America’s US ICE detention centers.
In the first 14 days of 2026 alone, five migrants died in U.S. immigration custody, one by apparent homicide. In December, seven more died. And in 2025, Reuters reported at least 30 deaths in ICE custody – the highest number in two decades. These are not allegations. They are US ICE disclosures – released, briefly noted, then dismissed with the familiar phrase that the “official cause of death remains under investigation.” But who is checking the conclusions?
The most recent death occurred on January 14th in El Paso, Texas. Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old immigrant from Nicaragua, was found unresponsive at Camp East Montana, a tent detention facility at Fort Bliss. ICE reported a presumed suicide. Diaz entered custody on January 6th after agents in Minneapolis arrested him for an immigration violation – not a criminal offense. He was processed for removal on January 12th. Two days later, he was dead.
That same day, another detainee died – also reportedly by suicide.
Heber Sanchaz Domínguez, a 34-year-old Mexican national, was found hanging in his sleeping quarters at the Robert A. Deyton Detention Center in Georgia. He had been in custody for just six days. Like Diaz, Sanchaz was not a criminal. He was arrested for driving without a license, transferred to ICE, and was awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge when he died.
These two men – someone’s sons – are among at least 12 deaths in less than two months. And now, at least one conclusion has already collapsed under scrutiny.
Then yesterday, an autopsy by the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled the death of 55-year-old Cuban detainee Geraldo Lunas Campos a homicide, caused by asphyxia due to neck and torso compression while he was being restrained by law enforcement at the same Camp East Montana facility. Federal officials had initially described his death as a suicide. The medical finding does not assign criminal guilt. But it does expose a disturbing pattern: deaths first framed as self-inflicted, later contradicted by evidence – after public attention has already moved on.
Their deaths come as the Trump administration accelerates a detention-first immigration strategy built not only on deportation, but on pressure: pressure to give up, to waive rights, to stop fighting.
New data shows roughly 73,000 migrants are currently detained nationwide, the majority of them non-criminals. The detention system is expanding at a pace that could rival the federal prison system by the end of the president’s term, fueled by billions in new funding.
A January 2026 report by the American Immigration Council, Immigration Detention Expansion in Trump’s Second Term, found that daily ICE detention increased 75% in one year. Even more alarming, the number of people with no criminal record held in detention surged by 2,450% – a seismic shift in who is being swept into custody.
Human rights groups have warned about Camp East Montana for months. In December, advocates urged ICE to shut the facility down, citing interviews with more than 45 detainees who described beatings, sexual abuse, medical neglect, and hunger. One teenager reported being beaten so severely that he required hospitalization.
If this is what emerges from sworn declarations and outside reporting, we must ask what remains unseen. Many deaths never become national stories. They become line items. Press releases. Statistics. As the American Immigration Lawyers Association warned, “The problems with conditions in ICE detention are likely to grow only worse over the next four years.”
What makes these deaths uniquely haunting is that immigration detention is civil, not criminal. People can end up in custody for overstaying a visa or for minor infractions. Yet the conditions described – tent camps, isolation, fear – look less like administrative processing and more like federal punishment.
The United States should be capable of enforcing immigration law without building a system where people routinely die—sometimes within days, sometimes amid alleged brutality. We cannot claim “pro-life” values while shrugging at these deaths as if they were not human.
If five immigrants can die in ten days, two from suicide, the real scandal is not that it happened. The real scandal is how quickly we are being trained to accept – and dismiss – it.
Felicia J. Persaud is the founder and publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com, the only daily syndicated newswire and digital platform dedicated exclusively to Caribbean Diaspora and Black immigrant news across the Americas.