36 Have Died in ICE Detention Centers Since 2025

All eyes are on the Trump administration’s “immigration enforcement” operation in Minnesota, where roving squads of federal agents in Minneapolis are demanding proof of citizenship from people of color on the street and clashing with residents outraged by the deadly shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last week, Mike Ludwig reported for Truthout.

Far less visible is the rapidly expanding nationwide network of jails and prisons where ICE and Border Patrol detain people after they are arrested, and that is almost certainly by design.

Four people have died in federal immigration jails so far in 2026, and at least 32 people died in ICE jails during 2025 as President Donald Trump ramped up his mass deportation campaign.

The 2025 death count constituted the most deaths in ICE jails ever recorded outside of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If we are seeing that sort of outward extreme violence in broad daylight in the streets of Minneapolis and across the country, imagine what people must be facing behind closed doors and behind bars in ICE detention centers,” said Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at the Detention Watch Network, in an interview with Truthout.

The number of people imprisoned by ICE increased by 75% to nearly 66,000 in 2025.

Despite repeated claims by administration officials about targeting “the worst of the worst,” nearly 74% of those detained have no criminal convictions, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse immigration database.

ICE’s “roving patrols” and “indiscriminate raids” have contributed to a 2,450% increase in the number of people with no criminal record held in ICE detention on any given day, according to the American Immigration Council.