ICE Is Legally Required to Issue Full Reports on Detainee Deaths. They’ve Completely Stopped Doing It.

Update: On Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, ICE suddenly updated its U.S. detainee death reporting page after ignoring it for months, simultaneously issuing eight death reports that had lapsed past the legally required 90-day deadline. Some, like that of Santos Reyes-Banegas, had occurred as much as 140 days ago, and were thus 50 days overdue when finally issued. Others, such as the reports for detainees Norland Guzman-Fuentes and Miguel Angel Garcia-Hernandez–perhaps special cases because they died in a sniper attack on a detainment camp–have still not been issued.

When you visit the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) web page for Detainee Death Reporting, the agency is nice enough to spell out exactly what is federally required of them, by law: “Congressional requirements described in the DHS Appropriations Bill of 2018 require ICE to make public all reports regarding an in-custody death within 90 days.”

That’s how the system is supposed to work. Within two business days of an actual death, ICE informs both the public and Congress via an initial press release posted on their newsroom page. The full report on the Detainee Death Reporting page, with more detail on how and why exactly the death occurred, is then supposed to follow, by law, within 90 days. But for reasons unknown, and in the wake of severe reports of abuse and detainee deaths that surged to a record high in 2025, ICE seems to have abruptly and without cause or explanation simply stopped issuing those full reports in the last few months. There are currently at least 8 detainee deaths that occurred within ICE custody that have exceeded the 90-day deadline without any report being issued. Multiple requests for comment from Jezebel/Splinter to the Department of Homeland Security failed to generate any response.

ICE appears to be breaking the law, and defying the United States Congress, even as agents have been accused of physically choking a detainee to death in Texas in a case that has been ruled a homicide by the local medical examiner. And yet as far as I can tell, there has been no acknowledgement of these missed deadlines by Congress, nor any attempt to compel ICE or DHS to comply with the law. There’s been almost no direct media coverage of the lack of death reports, either. Which begs the question, why is Congress ignoring ICE’s defiance of the law? And will the public also allow this to go on without an outcry?

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The Missing ICE Detainee Death Reports

The last detainee to die in the custody of ICE who has actually gotten the legally required full death report (a mere 1.5 pages) appears to be 39-year-old Mexican national Ismael Ayala-Uribe, who passed away at a hospital in Victorville, Calif., on Sept. 22, 2025, from a series of medical complications he seemed to develop only after entering ICE custody. Since that time, every detainee death that has exceeded 90 days has failed to be accompanied by a full death report on ICE’s Detainee Death Reporting page. Here is every single one of those deaths, which actually includes at least one person who died before Ismael Ayala-Uribe.

— Santos Reyes-Banegas: A 42-year-old native of Honduras, died in ICE custody at the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow, N.Y., on Sept. 18 according to the initial ICE press release. Reyes-Banegas had been brought into custody the day earlier and was at the facility for less than 18 hours before he was “found unresponsive in his unit.” The press release says “the preliminary cause appears to be liver failure complicated by alcoholism.” One can’t help but question if this was a person with a severe addiction, who endured severe withdrawal while in ICE custody, who should instead have been in medical care from the start if he was in advanced liver failure. He died 134 days ago, and there has been no legally required full report from ICE.

— Norland Guzman-Fuentes and Miguel Angel Garcia-Hernandez: These two deaths are a unique circumstance, as both Norlan Guzman-Fuentes, a 37-year-old native of El Salvador, and Miguel Angel Garcia-Hernandez, a 31-year-old native of Mexico, were shot in the Sept. 24, 2025 sniper attack against a Dallas immigration facility that was perpetrated by paranoid, seemingly mentally ill 29-year-old Texas resident gunman Joshua Jahn, who took his own life during the incident. By letter of the law, however, both should still receive full detainee death reports via ICE. It has been 128 days since the shooting, with no legally required full report.

— Huabing Xie: A native of China, Huabing Xie (age not listed) died at the El Centro Regional Medical Center in El Centro, Calif., on Sept. 29, according to the initial ICE press release. Few details are furnished, beyond that “Xie experienced what appeared to be a seizure and became unresponsive.” He was transferred to the hospital and pronounced dead. It has been 123 days since the death, with no legally required full report from ICE.

— Leo Cruz-Silva: A 34-year-old native of Mexico, died in ICE custody at the Ste. Genevieve County Jail in Genevieve, Mo., on Oct. 4 according to the initial ICE press release. That press release states that “a county jail staff member found Cruz-Silva with a sheet tied around his neck in what looked like a suicide attempt.” It has been 118 days since the death, with no legally required full report from ICE.

— Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh: A 67-year-old native of Jordan, died in ICE custody at Larkin Community Hospital in Miami, Fla., on Oct. 11, according to the initial ICE press release. Saleh had “significant medical history, including hypertension, heart disease, renal disease and diabetes,” and an LCH physician reported the preliminary cause of death as cardiac arrest. He had been taken to the hospital one day earlier due to fever. It has been 111 days since the death, with no legally required full report from ICE.

By way of comparison, a total of 26 people died in ICE detention during the four years of the Biden administration.

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— Adam Sawyer (@adamjst.bsky.social) Dec 18, 2025 at 9:15 PM

— Gabriel Garcia-Aviles: A 56-year-old native of Mexico, died in ICE custody at the Victor Valley Global Medical Center in Victorville, Calif., on Oct. 23. Notably, this particular death wasn’t given an initial press release acknowledging that it had happened until Nov. 2, which was 11 days after Garcia-Aviles had passed away, which is in conflict with ICE’s stated two-business-day window. He was transferred to the hospital almost immediately after entering ICE custody on Oct. 15, suffering from suspected alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and worsened in condition until his death on Oct. 23. It has been 99 days since the death, with no legally required full report from ICE.

— Kai Yin Wong: A 63-year-old native of China, he died at the Methodist Metropolitan Hospital in San Antonio, Texas on Oct. 25, 2025, according to the initial ICE press release. Wong had been in ICE custody for more than a year following a prison sentence, and was transported to a hospital on Oct. 11 following symptoms of what were eventually diagnosed as heart failure. He underwent heart surgery on Oct. 23, but developed complications that seemingly led to his death on Oct. 25. It has been 97 days since the death, with no legally required full report from ICE.

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Why Did ICE Stop Issuing Reports?

Since the death of Kai Yin Wong on Oct. 25, the pace of deaths in ICE custody has only seemingly accelerated: 13 detainees have died, according to ICE’s initial press releases, in the span of the last 58 days, but these deaths are still within the 90-day reporting window that ICE is legally supposed to abide by in issuing its full Detainee Death Reports and updating its website. These deaths, however, include some of the most potentially contentious that have happened in ICE custody during the second Donald Trump administration, including the Jan. 3, 2026 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, which the medical examiner ruled as a homicide by asphyxiation. A named witness within detention Camp East Montana told media that he had seen five immigration agents physically subduing and choking Geraldo Lunas Campos before his death. The Trump administration and DHS, meanwhile, claimed that Campos had tried to take his own life, but made that claim only after it was reported that the medical examiner would be ruling the death a homicide. The initial press release makes no mention whatsoever of a suicide attempt.

Choking someone to death is one of the most deliberate ways a concentration camp guard can kill a detainee

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— Going In Like Stan Chera (@milpool.bsky.social) Jan 26, 2026 at 6:08 PM

Which begs the question: What would the full detainee death report from ICE say about the case of Geraldo Lunas Campos? And will we ever find out, if ICE has simply stopped putting together the reports as they’re legally required to do? It is interesting, to say the least, that the agency stopped issuing these full reports at around exactly the same time as its agents were effectively being accused of murder by the local medical examiner. It’s also interesting that when another detainee at Camp East Montana died in an alleged suicide only 11 days after Campos, his body was not sent to the same medical examiner who issued the declaration of homicide, instead being examined by an army medical examiner at Fort Bliss.

Just how much are we going to allow Trump’s immigration gestapo to get away with here? The law is clear about the 90-day deadline for issuing these reports, but does anyone in Congress care enough to demand answers and accountability? If they don’t, what is to stop ICE from simply ceasing their issuing of initial press releases about detainee deaths as well? If the agency just stopped telling us when detainees died entirely, would there be any way for us to know? As we slide down this chute toward government-operated extermination camps, who will care enough to even note the names of the dead?