Chart: Nami Sumida\/S.F. Chronicle \u00b7 Source: Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Vera Institute of Justice<\/a>\u00a0and Chronicle research<\/p>\n
The federal government houses immigration detainees in a network of jails and facilities, some operated by public agencies and others by for-profit contractors. Most\u00a0of the deaths occurred in facilities managed by private companies, the two largest of which are CoreCivic and Geo Group. CoreCivic\u00a0posted record revenues\u00a0in 2025 while Geo Group boasted of record new business as it secured federal contracts.<\/p>\n
Health care in detention facilities is provided by these third-party contractors, ICE Health Service Corps employees, or federal or county agencies.<\/p>\n
Just nine of the\u00a0more than 220 immigration detention facilities\u00a0across the country accounted\u00a0for half the deaths since the beginning of 2025, the Chronicle found, despite holding no more than 16% of the national detainee population\u00a0on three dates across that period. Five of these facilities were cited for medical care deficiencies after their most recent inspections by ICE\u2019s Office of Detention Oversight. CoreCivic and Geo Group each operate two of the eight facilities.<\/p>\n
Asked for comment, Geo Group referred the Chronicle to ICE. CoreCivic spokesperson Brian Todd declined to comment on individual deaths, citing medical privacy laws, but stated that \u201cnothing matters more to CoreCivic than the health and safety of the people in our care\u201d and that it provides high-quality medical and mental health care for all detainees, following company and government standards.<\/p>\n
Information about the quality of care in ICE custody is increasingly limited. Under the Trump administration,\u00a0two detention watchdog agencies\u00a0have been gutted, and inspections by a third oversight body, ICE\u2019s Office of Detention Oversight, have plummeted.<\/p>\n
ICE detainee death reports have in the past few months become shorter and less detailed in describing the medical care a person received before they died, which doctors said made it difficult to evaluate that care. The Chronicle requested fuller records, called mortality reviews, but the agency did not respond\u00a0by the legally required Freedom of Information Act deadline.<\/p>\n
Michelle Bran\u00e9, who was immigration detention ombudsman\u00a0under President Joe Biden\u2019s administration, when 26 people died in ICE custody over four years, said she believes that poor medical care offered at detention facilities under the Trump administration is by design.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want the circumstances in custody to be so bad that people take removal and give up their rights,\u201d said Bran\u00e9, who now directs Together and Free, a nonprofit organization that helps families navigate immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cMigra here,\u201d Ayala-Uribe texted his sister at 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 17, referring to immigration agents. Border Patrol agents\u00a0were raiding the Fountain Valley car wash\u00a0where he\u2019d worked for 15 years. Ten minutes later, his friend called to tell the family that the agents had taken him.<\/p>\n
The oldest of three, Ayala-Uribe loved playing the role of adoring son and uncle, said his mother, Lucia Uribe-Martinez. He relished being chosen as godfather for his niece\u2019s baptism, treating her like his own daughter.<\/p>\n
Though he didn\u2019t make much money, he was quick to share what he had, his mother said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe took care of me,\u201d Uribe-Martinez said in Spanish. \u201cWhatever little thing we wanted, he\u2019d buy it for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
A relative had brought Ayala-Uribe to the U.S. from Mexico in 1991. Over the years, his parents and younger sister became citizens. His brother\u00a0was born in the United States.\u00a0Ayala-Uribe received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status in 2012, but lost it in 2016 after he was convicted of driving while intoxicated.\u00a0In June 2019, he was convicted again for the same offense.<\/p>\n
Ismael Ayala-Uribe holds his niece, Sophia Ayala, at her baptism. He died at age 39, the month after ICE agents detained him. Courtesy Jose Ayala<\/p>\n
Five days after the raid, ICE transferred Ayala-Uribe to the Adelanto center, run by Geo Group. Ayala-Uribe had been fairly healthy, his family said, apart from high blood pressure.<\/p>\n
Initially, Ayala-Uribe called home daily to talk to his nephews. Soon, however, his mom noticed something was wrong. First a cough, then a fever. He said he had a spot on his buttock that had started to hurt and just kept getting worse.<\/p>\n
Fountain Valley Auto Wash in Orange County where Ismael Ayala-Uribe worked for 15 years before he was taken during an ICE raid in August 2025. Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
\u201cHe started having pains,\u201d his brother, Jose Ayala, said, \u201cbut they really didn\u2019t want to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pain grew so bad that when Ayala-Uribe visited the detention infirmary on Sept. 18, staff took him there in a wheelchair, according to ICE records. He told a nurse it was unbearable. A physician ordered pain medications, anti-inflammatory ointment, a fiber supplement and twice-daily wellness checks for 10 days.<\/p>\n
When Uribe-Martinez made the two-hour drive to see her son on Sept. 20, she was shocked by how sick and pale he looked.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t stress,\u201d she told him. \u201cBe calm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hours later, Ayala-Uribe\u00a0returned to the infirmary vomiting, records show. Staff sent him to a local hospital, where doctors found the abscess and a serious blood infection. They considered surgery \u2014 but before they took action, he stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
Ismael Ayala-Uribe\u2019s sister, Mayra Ayala, and niece Sophia visit his grave at Westminster Memorial Park. Santiago Mejia \/ S.F. Chronicle Anthony Ayala, age 10, cleans the headstone of his uncle, Ismael Ayala-Uribe. Santiago Mejia \/ S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
In a press release after he died, ICE said, \u201cAt no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergent care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Geo Group declined to comment on Ayala-Uribe\u2019s case, referring the Chronicle to ICE, which did not respond to detailed questions about the death.<\/p>\n
Five doctors who reviewed Ayala-Uribe\u2019s case said he could have survived if a physician had examined him earlier, because they would have diagnosed and drained the abscess and treated the infection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a young man who never should have died,\u201d said Dr. William Weber, a Minneapolis-based emergency physician\u00a0and medical director of the prison health care advocacy nonprofit Medical Justice Alliance\u00a0who reviewed Ayala-Uribe\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
Dr. William Weber, an emergency physician, stands near his home in Minneapolis. He focuses on community health and medical rights and helped found the Medical Justice Alliance, a nonprofit organization that reviews the medical care of incarcerated individuals. Jenn Ackerman\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Instead, Dr. Weber said, he suffered \u201can excruciating death, in an unfamiliar location, away from his family, after he\u2019d tried as hard as he could to get support from people constitutionally required to care for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Physicians who reviewed the records of immigration detainee deaths since Trump\u2019s inauguration identified at least 13 people who died after medical staff misdiagnosed or failed to evaluate and diagnose them for conditions that later killed them.<\/p>\n
Francisco Gaspar-Andr\u00e9s, a\u00a048-year-old Guatemalan man\u00a0with no criminal history,\u00a0was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis at a hospital days after he was arrested in Florida in September. But when he was transferred to Camp East Montana in Texas days later, detention staff noted that he had \u201cno significant medical history,\u201d according to ICE\u2019s detainee death report.<\/p>\n
Joseph Nwadiuko, an internal medicine physician and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has researched health care in detention settings. He reviewed detainee medical records at the Chronicle\u2019s request, including for Francisco Gaspar-Andr\u00e9s. Phobymo\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Over the next two months, he went to the medical unit nine times,\u00a0complaining of symptoms including bloody stool and bleeding gums that, according to\u00a0four doctors\u00a0that reviewed his case, likely resulted from severe liver deterioration.<\/p>\n
Yet there is no indication in ICE records that he received treatment for the condition at Camp East Montana. He was sent back from visits to the medical unit with allergy, heartburn and indigestion medications and diagnosed with influenza despite repeatedly testing negative.<\/p>\n
The facility operator, Acquisition Logistics<\/a>, did not respond to a request for comment. The Virginia-based company had no experience in detention management when it was awarded the $1.2 billion contract last year.<\/p>\n At ICE\u2019s first and only inspection of the facility in February, inspectors found 49 deficiencies, including a failure to isolate or notify ICE of detainees with tuberculosis symptoms, a failure to test them for HIV, a lack of appropriate sexual abuse and assault response policies, and a failure to respond to detainee complaints about medical care promptly. Though required to respond within five business days,\u00a0staff members responded to complaints in six to 14 business days in a number of cases, inspectors found.<\/p>\n Inspectors graded the facility as \u201cacceptable,\u201d the lowest passing rating. ICE has very rarely failed facilities in inspections.<\/p>\n When Gaspar-Andr\u00e9s\u00a0was finally sent to a hospital in November, he had liver failure. He died from the condition two weeks later. All four doctors\u00a0who reviewed his case said they thought he could have survived if he\u2019d been treated for liver disease earlier.<\/p>\n \u201cThis person is telling you they\u2019re dying for two months, and you ignored it,\u201d\u00a0said Dr. Zeidan, the Emory professor and physician.<\/p>\n In many cases,\u00a0immigration detainees died after receiving either delayed care or no treatment after detention staff learned of their medical conditions, or after they complained to staff about symptoms of a condition that then killed them, physicians told the Chronicle.<\/p>\n Luis Beltran Yanez Cruz, a 68-year-old Honduran construction worker, had just finished breakfast at a New Jersey McDonald\u2019s when he was arrested in an ICE operation alongside other day laborers.<\/p>\n He\u2019d come to the U.S. illegally 26 years earlier, and had no criminal history. A father of three, he adored his six grandchildren, whom he affectionately called his \u201ccocolitos,\u201d\u00a0his daughter Josselyn Yanez said.<\/p>\n Days after being transferred to Imperial Regional Detention Center, run by Management and Training Corp. in the California border city of Calexico in late November, Cruz began experiencing stomach pain, acid reflux and shortness of breath. He sought medical attention over several weeks, ICE records show, \u201creceiving symptomatic treatment\u00a0and dietary advice from nursing staff.\u201d<\/p>\n Three doctors who reviewed his case said that his symptoms signaled early stages of a heart attack or an impending heart attack\u00a0and that he should have been sent to an emergency room for treatment.<\/p>\n When he called his daughter, he told her he felt like he was suffocating and was vomiting up his meals.<\/p>\n On Jan. 4, he visited the detention medical clinic again complaining of chest pain. A nurse told him to return to his cell and to come back \u201cif symptoms worsened,\u201d ICE records state.<\/p>\n That night, as Cruz\u2019s condition deteriorated, he was finally transferred to a hospital. By then, he was critically ill from an untreated, massive heart attack and congestive heart failure. He died two days later.<\/p>\n Three physician reviewers said that if not for the delayed care, his death could have been prevented.<\/p>\n \u201cI would call that very poor care, and it strongly appears to be negligent care,\u201d said Dr. David Baron, a Cambridge, Mass.-based internal medicine physician of 35 years. Registered nurses are not qualified to evaluate or give medical advice on life-threatening symptoms like chest pain, Baron said, and should have escalated his case to a doctor.<\/p>\n \u201cEither their policies and practices are not to refer life-threatening symptoms to a doctor, or they\u2019re just frankly incompetent.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily Lawhead, a spokesperson for Management and Training Corp., said Cruz was \u201ctreated quickly and promptly by medical staff before being sent to the hospital for further, more comprehensive care.\u201d Complaints of chest pain are taken seriously, she said, and \u201coutside commentators do not have access to complete medical records.\u201d<\/p>\n Yanez told her son that Grandpa had gone to heaven. His body was sent to his brothers in Honduras to be buried.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat hurts the most is that they didn\u2019t help my dad,\u201d Yanez said in Spanish. \u201cAnd knowing that he died alone, without family.\u201d<\/p>\n Three people\u00a0who died of alcohol or drug withdrawal could have survived if they had received appropriate, timely treatment, two addiction medicine specialists said. In each case, detention staff appeared to violate ICE<\/a>\u00a0standards<\/a>\u00a0that require detainees experiencing \u201csevere, life-threatening\u201d alcohol or drug withdrawal symptoms to be transferred \u201cimmediately\u201d to an emergency department.<\/p>\n Only one of the three, Gabriel Garcia Aviles,\u00a0was ever transferred to a hospital. Even then, staff took six hours to do so.<\/p>\n Aviles, a 54-year-old day laborer from Mexico who loved riding his bicycle with his children, died in October, nine days after being detained at the Adelanto center while suffering alcohol withdrawal.<\/p>\n Mariel Garcia keeps a memorial for her father, Gabriel Garcia Aviles, at her home in Los Angeles. Santiago Mejia\/S.F. ChronicleMariel Garcia and her daughter Sophia Rodriguez visit her father\u2019s grave at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County). Aviles died last October following his detention at Adelanto ICE Processing Center. Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n \u201cHe never committed any big crime or anything like that,\u201d said Aviles\u2019 son, Gabriel Alejandro Garcia. \u201cI think his crime was just to cross over here for his kids and give us a better life.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after ICE arrested Santos Banegas\u00a0Reyes, a 42-year-old Honduran\u00a0father working as a day laborer in New York\u00a0on Sept. 17, 2025, he was\u00a0trembling and suffering from abdominal pain. He told a nurse he drank daily. A doctor diagnosed him with alcohol withdrawal and sent him to his cell with a \u201clow bunk pass for seizure precautions.\u201d<\/p>\n ICE records do not provide any indication that staff checked on him over the next 17 hours.\u00a0By the time a detention officer found Reyes the next morning, his body was cold. ICE records listed the preliminary cause of death as apparent \u201cliver failure complicated by alcoholism.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Jose Luis Gonzalez, an addiction medicine specialist, said that someone should have been evaluating Reyes every two hours if he had severe alcohol withdrawal. With careful monitoring and treatment, alcohol withdrawal is survivable, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHow was it that he was just found unresponsive?\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost 24 hours, 17 hours, presumably, with no vital signs.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Jose Luis Gonzalez, who reviewed documents related to ICE detainee deaths at the Chronicle\u2019s request, at his home in Los Angeles. Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n The third man, Parady La, was a 46-year-old Cambodian refugee. His 23-year-old daughter remembered him for his love of tennis, which he taught her to play. He was diagnosed with severe opiate withdrawal soon after being detained and was found unresponsive, in critical condition, in a cell at Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Emery Nelson declined to comment on La\u2019s case, but said that it provides \u201curgent and emergent evaluations when needed.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Ryan Marino, an emergency medicine and addiction medicine physician and an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said that if the three\u00a0men received proper medical care, \u201call those people should be alive, based on the information DHS put out.\u201d<\/p>\n At\u00a0least 10 people\u00a0died after staff members at detention centers did not call 911 or send patients to an emergency room in situations that doctors\u00a0who reviewed their cases said should have warranted a more urgent response.<\/p>\n Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas,\u00a032, was living in Arizona, taking care of his mom as she battled cancer, when he was\u00a0arrested by local police on suspicion of drug possession in August.\u00a0ICE picked him up from Coconino County Jail and placed him in removal proceedings.<\/p>\n In custody at a Central Arizona detention facility run by CoreCivic, he contracted COVID-19. He recovered\u00a0but soon complained to a facility nurse of dizziness and difficulty breathing, and he had an abnormally fast heart rate. An advanced practice provider, a lower-level medical provider than a licensed doctor, sent him back to detention with a fever reducer, decongestant medication and an inhaler.<\/p>\n He returned the next day,\u00a0Aug. 31, 2025, still struggling to breathe and with shoulder pain.\u00a0Three\u00a0doctors\u00a0who reviewed his case said he should have been sent to an emergency room. Instead, a nurse \u201cadvised him to notify medical staff of any changes to his condition,\u201d records show.<\/p>\n An hour later, he was dead.\u00a0His cause of death was acute bronchopneumonia from influenza, according to the coroner\u2019s report.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s as if you see someone floundering and drowning,\u201d said Dr. Weber, the Minneapolis emergency physician, \u201cand you say, \u2018OK, well just let me know if anything changes,\u2019 and you wait until they go under and they\u2019re drowned.\u201d<\/p>\n Maksym Chernyak, 44, had fled to the U.S. in August 2024, leaving his home country of Ukraine and the war that had consumed it. He and his girlfriend, Oksana Tarasiuk, were\u00a0granted humanitarian parole\u00a0under the Biden-era Uniting for Ukraine program\u00a0and hoped to make a new start in Miami.<\/p>\n Instead, in January 2025, neighbors called the police when they overheard the couple arguing. Neither Chernyak nor Tarasiuk spoke English. In the subsequent misunderstanding, Tarasiuk said, police arrested Chernyak.<\/p>\n Tarasiuk, who\u2019d met Chernyak at a restaurant near Kiev in 2021, said it was love at first sight. After her boyfriend\u2019s arrest, she posted his bail. But ICE agents lodged a detainment request and Broward County deputies took Chernyak to Krome Detention Center, run by Akima Global Services LLC, on Miami\u2019s western outskirts. Akima did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Tarasiuk said Chernyak soon called her from the lockup and told her that he was being kept in frigid conditions and forced to sleep on concrete \u2014 and that he started getting sick.<\/p>\n During three medical appointments, detention staff found Chernyak had high blood pressure, according to records provided to the Chronicle by his attorney. Those levels, if sustained, can put someone at increased risk of a stroke, said neurologist Dr. Laura Boylan, who served as a New York University School of Medicine adjunct professor for 25 years.<\/p>\n However, medical records show Chernyak received no blood pressure treatment. ICE records referred to \u201cslightly elevated blood pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple usually spoke by phone in the afternoon, Tarasiuk said. But one day, she didn\u2019t hear from him. That night, around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 18, 2025, detention staff witnessed Chernyak having a seizure, vomiting and passing out.<\/p>\n A detention nurse took him to the facility\u2019s clinic. Records show that the nurse practitioner on call\u00a0thought he was intoxicated and called for nonemergency medical transportation to a hospital. Staff tried to put him in a wheelchair, but he slid out. Over the next hour and 13 minutes, staff members witnessed him suffering six more seizures\u00a0before they finally called 911, according to ICE records.<\/p>\n By the time he was evaluated at the hospital\u00a0two hours after his first seizure, he was comatose. Doctors diagnosed the episode as a\u00a0massive stroke caused by uncontrolled high blood pressure\u00a0and said he had \u201cirreversible brain damage,\u201d according to his hospital records. He died two days later.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was clearly inappropriate triage,\u201d said Dr. Elizabeth Burner, a University of Southern California associate professor and emergency physician. \u201cA seizure is an immediately life-threatening event, especially a first-time seizure.\u201d<\/p>\n Four doctors\u00a0who evaluated the available records from his case said Chernyak\u2019s death could have been prevented if 911 had been called after the first seizure and three doctors said his high blood pressure increased his risk of stroke.<\/p>\n Four deaths since Trump returned to office\u00a0occurred at Krome, which ICE inspectors faulted in 2025\u00a0for a shortage of medical staff and overcrowding. Inspectors discovered that medical staff weren\u2019t giving new detainees health screenings, a \u201crepeat deficiency,\u201d and failed to test them for tuberculosis.<\/p>\n While doctors unsuccessfully tried to save Chernyak, Tarasiuk was begging hospital staff to let her see him. They refused, citing that he was in ICE custody. On Feb. 20, 2025 she drove to her attorney\u2019s office to pay for Chernyak\u2019s deportation legal defense. Her lawyer walked over to her and whispered in her ear \u2014 her partner was dead.<\/p>\n Tarasiuk plans to return to Europe in a few months and scatter his ashes in the Alps, the mountains where he loved to hike and ski. The experience has changed her opinion of the United States, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe heard that the United States respects the human rights and freedom of people who live in it,\u201d Tarasiuk said in Ukrainian. \u201cSo we hoped that we would be able to start our new stable life without war. Now I have a fear of being here in this country as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Two psychiatrists\u00a0said that of the eight\u00a0people\u00a0who died by suicide in ICE detention,\u00a0they were most troubled by the case of Leo Cruz Silva, a 34-year-old Mexican man\u00a0arrested in Missouri in September 2025 on suspicion of public intoxication.<\/p>\n From the moment an ICE officer detained him at a county jailhouse, records show, officials knew he was paranoid and hearing voices.\u00a0The next day, a\u00a0nurse\u00a0saw him \u201chiding under his bed\u201d and reported he was experiencing \u201caudio and visual hallucinations.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Joanne Ahola, a psychiatrist and medical director emeritus of the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights, said the symptoms pointed to an acute psychotic crisis or acute delirium, which\u00a0was \u201cas much of an emergency as a heart attack,\u201d requiring\u00a0a 911 call and close monitoring for suicidality.<\/p>\n Instead, staff members kept Cruz Silva in his detention cell, prescribed antipsychotic medication and planned to evaluate him \u201cthe following week.\u201d<\/p>\n The next day, staff found him dead in his cell. He had hanged himself.\u00a0Dr. Jacob M. Appel, an emergency room psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Hospital\u00a0in New York, said Cruz Silva\u2019s treatment \u201cdefies any reasonable standard.\u201d Suicides in ICE detention, he said, can be prevented with better screening, monitoring and \u201csuicide-proofing\u201d facilities such as by ensuring nothing can be hung from ceilings.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a confined environment, the number of suicides should be close to zero,\u201d Dr. Appel said.<\/p>\n Four of the people who died in ICE custody were extremely medically frail before being detained and had no violent criminal history.\u00a0Five doctors said these individuals likely would not have died as quickly had they not been in detention.<\/p>\n Federal regulations allow ICE to release detainees if they \u201chave serious medical conditions in which continued detention would not be appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n Isidro Perez was a 75-year-old grandfather\u00a0who fled to Florida from Cuba when he was 16 and was granted entry to the U.S.\u00a0He was convicted of two drug possession charges in the early 1980s,\u00a0and sentenced to a total of 28 months in prison. It\u2019s not clear what his immigration status was\u00a0at the time.<\/p>\n After his release, he continued living in the U.S., working as a mechanic and fisherman and living on a boat, said his former partner, Maria Alaniz, 83.<\/p>\n He developed coronary heart disease and had stents placed in his heart. Then in June 2025, ICE officers arrested him, asserting he was present without admission or parole. He couldn\u2019t see well due to cataracts and needed help getting in and out of his boat, Alaniz said. He\u2019d also recently broken his shoulder in a fall, she said.<\/p>\n Perez called and told her that there were no beds for him to sleep on at the detention center and that the facility was kept at a frigid temperature. As the days passed, Perez reported in his calls that he was suffering from increasing pain, she said. \u201cI can\u2019t take it anymore,\u201d she recalled him saying.<\/p>\n Perez died of a heart attack three weeks after being detained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way they kept him wasn\u2019t right,\u201d Alaniz said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t humane. It was very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Two doctors who reviewed his case questioned why ICE detained him, given his poor health.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a frail elderly man,\u201d said Dr. Baron. \u201cPutting him in a stressful environment, you put him at greater risk of a heart attack.\u201d<\/p>\n Two\u00a0of the 48 people who died in immigration detention since last year passed away just days after President Trump took office, following care they received under the Biden administration.<\/p>\n One was Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, a 45-year-old Ethiopian man\u00a0who was arrested near the U.S.-Mexico border in August 2024. He was taken to Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, run by CoreCivic, which since 2004 has the highest number of fatalities of any immigration detention center.<\/p>\n During his intake screening at Eloy, a nurse wrote that Dejene denied having a history of any medical conditions. But over four months, he lost 20% of his body weight, complained to medical staff four times of back pain, had an elevated heart rate and was diagnosed with lymphoma.<\/p>\n Three doctors who reviewed his case said those symptoms should have prompted staff to test him for HIV. If they had, they could have started Dejene on antiretroviral therapy, likely prolonging his life.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until after he was transferred to a hospital intensive care unit at Banner-University Medical Center in Phoenix on Dec. 31, 2024, that physicians identified Dejene\u2019s \u201cimmunocompromised status,\u201d records show.\u00a0Dejene was HIV-positive.<\/p>\n Doctors at the hospital found he had pneumonia, sepsis and lymphoma that had spread to his lungs, and had suffered a stroke. They removed him from life support on Jan. 29, 2025, according to ICE records. He died hours later, 9 days into Trump\u2019s new term.<\/p>\n Physicians questioned why it took so long to determine Dejene had HIV, when\u00a0testing adults for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, is standard medical practice.<\/p>\n \u201cHe never should have reached this stage,\u201d said Dr. Salim S. Abdool Karim, a Columbia University professor and the director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa<\/a>. \u201cHe died of multiple opportunistic infections. The sad part is all of them are eminently preventable with timely AIDS treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the country and beyond, detainees, their families and advocates are seeking reforms for what they argue are broad failures of health care in immigration lockups.<\/p>\n Detainees have sued ICE multiple times, including in a January lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0seeking class action status over conditions in Adelanto, where four people have died in custody under the Trump administration. Plaintiffs alleged they were denied medication and subjected to mold infestation and outbreaks of chickenpox and staph infection.<\/p>\n ICE has argued in legal filings that plaintiffs did not show \u201cirreparable harm\u201d and rebutted their legal grounds for suing.<\/p>\n Officials from Mexico\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement March 30 calling for an investigation into conditions at the facility \u201cdue to grave omissions and evident deficiencies in medical care provided to detainees.\u201d<\/p>\n At the national level, California Sen. Alex Padilla is co-sponsoring a bill<\/a>\u00a0seeking to improve the conditions and oversight of ICE detention centers.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s unthinkable that people are dying from preventable causes while in federal custody in the United States, but that\u2019s the cruel reality of Donald Trump\u2019s America,\u201d Padilla said.<\/p>\n In California, immigrants\u00a0at the state\u2019s largest ICE detention center, in Kern County, sued the government<\/a>\u00a0over delayed medical treatment in November, prompting a federal judge<\/a>\u00a0to install an independent medical monitor.<\/p>\n Masuma Khan, 64, who was detained at the California City facility the previous month, is now\u00a0working with state lawmakers on a bill<\/a>\u00a0to fine private operators up to $25,000 per day for violations of an array of health, safety and labor standards.<\/p>\n Khan, who is fighting deportation, said in an interview that she requested blood pressure medication, asthma inhalers and medicated eye drops after being detained. But she didn\u2019t receive them for six days, medical records show. She didn\u2019t get pills to manage her asthma until 28 days into detention.<\/p>\n From left, Isteak Khan, Masuma Khan and Riya Khan at Masuma and Isteak Khan\u2019s home in Altadena (Los Angeles County). Masuma Khan is now advocating for a bill to fine private operators of detention facilities for violations of an array of health, safety and labor standards. Jenna Schoenefeld\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Masuma Khan holds some of her medications at her home in Altadena in December. While in ICE detention, Khan said she was denied access to the medication, putting her at risk of a stroke, according to a doctor who reviewed her case at the Chronicle\u2019s request. Jenna Schoenefeld\/For the S.F. Chronicle A figurine of the Statue of Liberty sits on a table at Masuma and Isteak Khan\u2019s home, a gift from their daughter, Riya Khan. Jenna Schoenefeld\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Khan\u2019s daughter, Riya, visited her six days in and said Khan struggled to breathe and speak and had bruised, swollen legs. Based on the blood pressure reading Khan saw when a nurse took it, she was bordering on a hypertensive crisis and at risk of a stroke, a doctor who reviewed her case at the Chronicle\u2019s request said.<\/p>\n She and her\u00a0daughter said they complained until Khan finally received some of her medication. Khan, who was soon ordered released by a federal judge who said her detention was illegal,\u00a0said in an interview, \u201cI was putting\u00a0sick calls two, three times every day, asking them for my medicine. They didn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n The spokesperson for CoreCivic, which operates the facility, declined to comment on Khan\u2019s case, citing medical privacy, but said detainees have access to a \u201ccontinuum of health care services,\u201d including a pharmacy.<\/p>\n Since Ayala-Uribe\u2019s death, his family\u2019s home in Huntington Beach has felt empty, Jose Ayala said. In the bedroom the brothers once shared, their mother placed a candle and photo of Ismael close to his former bedside. Every Sunday, the family drives to the cemetery to visit his grave.<\/p>\n His father and mother can\u2019t speak about Ismael\u2019s death without choking up.<\/p>\n The family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Adelanto operator Geo Group, which did not respond to questions about the litigation. The suit, filed Dec. 31, argues that Ayala-Uribe\u2019s death was due to \u201cdeliberate indifference\u201d to the poor conditions at the facility and the \u201ccallous disregard\u201d for his rights.<\/p>\n \u201cI want justice,\u201d his mother said. \u201cThey\u2019re not animals. \u2026 This was a sin.\u201d<\/p>\n Ismael Ayala-Uribe\u2019s niece, Sophia Ayala, blows flowers over her godfather\u2019s grave at Westminster Memorial Park in March. Santiago Mejia\/S.F. ChronicleAbout this story<\/p>\n The Chronicle focused reporting on 32 detainee death cases in which some revelatory documents were available.<\/p>\n Reporters then asked 14 doctors with specialties relevant to the detainees\u2019 causes of death \u2014 including emergency room physicians, addiction specialists and psychiatrists\u00a0\u2014 to review ICE death reports and, when available, autopsies, toxicology reports, coroner\u2019s investigations and medical records for these cases. These documents were either obtained by the Chronicle through records requests, were publicly available, or were provided by families or attorneys.<\/p>\n The doctors practice all over the U.S. Some previously conducted research into health care in immigration detention settings, or advocated for higher-quality care.<\/p>\n At least two physicians and as many as five reviewed each of the cases. There were 23 medical fatalities that occurred in ICE custody in which the agency had published a legally required detainee death report, which details medical care a person received in custody. Doctors also reviewed one\u00a0drug withdrawal death in which the report had not been published. Two psychiatrists reviewed each of the eight suicides in ICE custody.<\/p>\n In each case, the Chronicle asked doctors whether the person did not receive appropriate and timely medical treatment that could have saved the person\u2019s life.<\/p>\n The Chronicle then conducted further reporting on 17 cases in which at least two doctors said medical staff delayed or failed to provide this potentially lifesaving care. In these cases, the physicians\u2019 opinions were not necessarily unanimous. Some said they did not have enough information to make an evaluation, which the Chronicle indicated in its database.<\/p>\n The Chronicle did not ask doctors to review five deaths from fatal violence, nor deaths that occurred outside a detention facility though in ICE custody.<\/p>\n This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Notice<\/a>.<\/p>\n CreditsReporting and data by St. John Barned-Smith and Ko Lyn Cheang. Graphics and development by Nami Sumida. Photography by Santiago Mejia, Jenna Schoenefeld, Philip Cheung and Phobymo. Editing by Caleb Pershan, Dominic Fracassa, Demian Bulwa and Ryan Gabrielson. Data editing by Dan Kopf. Photo editing by Emily Jan. Copy editing by Linda Houser. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ismael Ayala-Uribe was in agony. The pain started soon after immigration agents seized the bespectacled 39-year-old man, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-576119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/sf-square-black.png\"\/)
The Chronicle\u2019s most popular stories and best reads of the moment.<\/p>\n