Cuban man is 18th person to die in US ICE custody this year: Monitor

Rights radical says believed termination underscores request for much oversight amid Trump’s wide deportation drive.

A 33-year-old Cuban antheral has died successful Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, believed to beryllium by suicide, the bureau has said.

A monitoring radical connected Friday said Denny Adan Gonzalez was the 18th idiosyncratic to dice successful US migration custody this twelvemonth amid the medication of US President Donald Trump’s wide deportation drive. He is besides the 5th decease believed to beryllium by suicide, according to Physicians for Human Rights, which warned of a signifier of “increasing suicides”.

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In its statement, ICE said Gonzalez had been arrested connected December 12, 2025, successful Charlotte, North Carolina for “assault connected a pistillate and home violence”.

He was transferred to ICE custody astatine Stewart Detention Center successful Georgia successful January. It added that helium had antecedently been expelled from the US but re-entered without documentation successful 2022.

On Tuesday, Gonzalez was recovered unresponsive successful his compartment and was pronounced dormant astatine a adjacent hospital, according to ICE. He was discovered by unit from CoreCivic, a backstage situation institution that partners with ICE.

Monitors person said 2026 is connected way to person the highest decease toll successful ICE custody successful the agency’s 22-year history. Last twelvemonth already saw a grounds fig of deaths successful migration custody, with 33 confirmed.

The uptick comes amid a surge successful immigration detentions nether Trump, which reached a precocious of much than 70,000 radical successful detention successful January of this year. That was up from conscionable little than 40,000 radical successful migration detention erstwhile Trump took bureau successful January 2025, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) tracker.

Responding to Gonzalez’s death, Physicians for Human Rights said it “reflects a signifier of expanding suicides successful a strategy wherever solitary confinement remains widespread, contempt well-documented grounds of its terrible intelligence harms”.

Andrew Free, a lawyer who tracks migration detention, has said Gonzalez had been held successful solitary confinement. ICE did not accidental successful its connection whether Gonzalez was being held successful isolation erstwhile helium was recovered dead. Al Jazeera has reached retired to the bureau for comment.

In a statement, Katherine Peeler, a aesculapian doc and prof astatine Harvard Medical School, said she was “not amazed by this decease – and that is precisely what makes it truthful devastating”.

“When idiosyncratic successful migration detention is placed successful isolation, already separated from family, community, societal and ineligible support, the hazard compounds. ICE has received this grounds repeatedly, done our reports, done legislature testimony, done probe by their ain oversight bodies.”

Peeler, who advises Physicians for Human Rights, had antecedently co-authored an world nonfiction that documented rollbacks successful oversight amid the detention surge nether Trump.

For its part, ICE said successful its connection it is “committed to ensuring that each those successful custody reside successful safe, secure, and humane environments”.

“All radical successful ICE custody person medical, dental, and intelligence wellness intake screenings wrong 12 hours of arriving astatine each detention facility; a afloat wellness appraisal wrong 14 days of entering ICE custody oregon arriving astatine a facility; entree to aesculapian appointments; and 24-hour exigency care,” it said.

“At nary clip during detention is simply a detained noncitizen denied exigency care,” it added.