{"id":786,"date":"2026-06-26T18:41:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=786"},"modified":"2026-06-26T18:41:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:41:51","slug":"the-death-rate-for-ice-detainees-has-skyrocketed-under-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=786","title":{"rendered":"The Death Rate for ICE Detainees Has Skyrocketed Under Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In February 2025,<\/span> Maksym Chernyak had a medical emergency. There were multiple signs that Chernyak\u2014a 44-year-old from Ukraine detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Florida\u2014was suffering a severe stroke. But ICE\u2019s medical personnel missed those clues. By the time 911 was called, it was too late. Chernyak\u2019s\u00a0systolic blood pressure was more than 280 when he got to the hospital. He died soon after.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

Read more John Bolton Pleads Guilty, But He Is Also the Victim of a Double Standard<\/a><\/p>\n

Chernyak is one of 52 people who died in ICE custody during the 500 days after President Donald Trump returned to office. A new report from two watchdog groups argues that ICE\u2019s mistakes \u201calmost certainly\u201d cost Chernyak his life. It also reveals that he was far from alone in receiving abysmal medical treatment while in immigration detention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The analysis\u2014released on Thursday by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights\u2014found that the mortality rate for people in ICE custody has skyrocketed during Trump\u2019s second-term mass-deportation campaign. It\u2019s nearly three times what it was during Joe Biden\u2019s presidency and about two times higher than during Trump\u2019s first term\u2014a period that covered the first 10 months of the Covid-19 pandemic. In other words, far more people are now in ICE detention than in prior administrations, and a far greater percentage of those detainees are dying.<\/p>\n

The report combines statistical analysis with detailed reviews of specific deaths in ICE custody. It states that PHR\u2014whose medical experts investigate allegations of abuse across the world\u2014identified a \u201chigh suspicion of inadequate or delayed health care\u201d in several deaths that raised \u201cserious concerns that the deaths may have been preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with calling for improved medical care within ICE detention, the report recommends that ICE reduce the number of people in detention and prevent overcrowding. Reagan Williams, a researcher in the Crisis, Conflict, and Arms division at HRW, told me that could partly be done by ending mandatory immigration detention, which has been greatly expanded under Trump.<\/p>\n

The current policy, which is the subject of an ongoing legal battle, subjects people who entered the country without inspection to mandatory detention regardless of criminal history or how long they have lived in the United States. In the past\u2014including during Trump\u2019s first term\u2014the people covered by the policy would have been eligible for bond hearings and could be released as their immigration cases proceeded.<\/p>\n

NBC News reported on Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s inspector general is launching a review of the increase in deaths in ICE detention centers. ICE did not respond to my request for comment.<\/p>\n

Williams said that HRW and PHR are also asking Congress to mandate detailed independent reviews of deaths in ICE custody. Additionally, HRW and PHR are calling for a new independent entity that would have authority and jurisdiction over the quality of medical services that are provided to people in detention.<\/p>\n

Some of the most disturbing sections of the report focus on the medical treatment received by men like Chernyak in the lead-up to their deaths. In Chernyak\u2019s case, HRW and PHR were able to gain a much more detailed understanding of what happened after obtaining medical records from his family. In other cases, they had to rely on inadequate information released by ICE that can obscure the scale of the agency\u2019s mistakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Katherine Peeler, a PHR medical adviser and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard, told me that Chernyak\u2019s case was \u201cshocking\u201d on many levels. One of the most concerning things noted by ICE\u2019s medical staff while Chernyak was at the detention center was that he was unresponsive and had \u201cdilated equal but nonreactive pupils.\u201d He also experienced \u201cseizure-like\u201d activity. Peeler said medical staff should have recognized that Chernyak may have been experiencing potentially life-threatening brain swelling.\u00a0<\/p>

Read more How Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Sparked a Movement to Overthrow the Government of Albania<\/a><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it was recommended that Chernyak be sent to an emergency room via \u201cnon-emergency, medical transport.\u201d Thirty minutes later\u2014while Chernyak was still waiting at the detention center\u2014he began having \u201cadditional seizures, vomited, and his pupils became unequal and remained non-reactive,\u201d according to the report from HRW and PHR. Medical staff at the detention center then finally called 911. At the hospital, Peeler said, medical professionals immediately recognized that he was suffering from what proved to be a fatal stroke.<\/p>\n

While conditions<\/span> in ICE detention have deteriorated since Trump returned to office, HRW and PHR\u2019s investigation makes clear that many of the problems are longstanding. That can be seen from the death of Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, a 45-year-old man from Ethiopia, on January 29, 2025. Dejene\u2014who was first detained during the Biden administration in August 2024\u2014began suffering from back pain around November 2024, according to information released by ICE.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During one six-week period, he was evaluated four different times by medical staff at an Arizona detention center. On the last of those visits, after a nurse noted that he had an \u201cabnormal slow gait,\u201d he was provided with pain medication and instructions for spine exercises. The nurse recommended a follow-up in two weeks, but Dejene needed medical attention again just four days later.<\/p>\n

This time, medical staff noted that Dejene had lost 20 percent of his body weight and sent him to a local emergency room, which then returned him to the detention center with a diagnosis of \u201cprobable lymphoma.\u201d Dejene\u2019s condition quickly deteriorated and he was sent back to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dejene died soon after. Peeler said the autopsy revealed that Dejene had a number of conditions that stemmed from AIDS that somehow went unnoticed by medical providers. According to the autopsy, those included \u201ccentral nervous system toxoplasmosis, tuberculosis, Diphyllobothrium tapeworm, pneumocystis pneumonia, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Candida albicans, and Cytomegalovirus.\u201d (ICE\u2019s for Dejene states that he denied having \u201cany medical history.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was immunocompromised, which led him to have all these infections,\u201d Peeler explained. \u201cWhich is how people used to die from AIDS. But people don\u2019t typically die from AIDS in this country anymore because we have such effective antiretrovirals.\u201d Peeler emphasized that ICE medical staff had multiple opportunities to potentially save Dejene\u2019s life. \u201cHe must have looked sick,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no way that he looked okay.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one I found really, really egregious,\u201d Peeler added. \u201cIt was over so many weeks. There were so many opportunities that he presented where they should have drawn labs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams, the HRW researcher, said she was struck in her research by just how little information is provided to people whose loved ones have died in ICE custody. She mentioned talking to a mother who \u201cwas desperate to know more about what had happened to her son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams stressed the human lives behind the numbers in the report. \u201cWhen we talk about a rising death rate,\u201d she explained, \u201cwe\u2019re talking about a mother losing her son who cooked for her, who cared for her, who she loves deeply, and who she is now suffering without.\u201d<\/p>

Read more The Mighty Colorado Is Vanishing, and the Fixes Are Getting Weird<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medical care in immigration facilities has long been inadequate. 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