Questionable deaths in ICE custody
A record number of detainees have died in ICE custody under Trump. Here are some of the most questionable cases.
For the last several months, I’ve been investigating deaths of immigrants who have died in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities. The first results of that investigation are out today at the Guardian. You won’t find this reporting anywhere else, so if you’d like to support my work, you can choose a paid subscription to American Doom or drop us a one-time contribution.
The last time we reported on deaths of detainees in immigration custody, I found that ICE had failed to provide detailed reporting on deaths within 90 days — a requirement of funding rules passed by Congress. Since then, ICE has begun updating its detainee death database in compliance with the rules. I hope that our reporting played a role in ICE’s mandate that it inform the public about deaths in which the agency has played a role.
This is the first of an ongoing series that explores the deaths of 38 men and women who have died in immigration custody since the start of the second Trump administration.
I also have a lot coming up on election interference ahead of the midterms. For now, you can listen to my recent appearance on Scott Harris’ Between the Lines show.
In March, Brayan Garzon-Rayo told a nurse at a jail in rural Missouri that he was not depressed and had no history of suicidal thoughts. The 27-year-old from Colombia then tested positive for tuberculosis and COVID before allegedly taking his own life.
In early January, Victor Diaz, 34, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a Minneapolis suburb for being in the U.S. illegally. Eight days later, he was dead inside a medical clinic on an army base 1,300 miles away after allegedly taking his own life. Diaz is the first death at the detention center since a local medical medical examiner determined another death there was a homicide, directly contradicting federal officials. Now, the U.S Army has since stepped in to perform Diaz’s autopsy — over the objection of local authorities.
On the same day of Diaz’s death, Jan. 14, 34-year-old Heber Sanchaz Dominguez took his own life inside a detention center in Georgia. Sanchaz Dominguez had no criminal history, but was involved in a car wreck on Jan. 7. He was arrested for driving without a license and insurance, law enforcement told American Doom. His family has said they’ve received “no answers” about Sanchaz Dominguez’s death.
In another case, a Chinese man named Chaofeng Ge who ICE has said took his own life at a detention facility in Pennsylvania was later found to have had his hands and feet tied behind his back at the time of death.
The deaths of the four men are among six suicides that have occurred in U.S. immigration custody since President Donald Trump took office a little more than a year ago. That’s the highest number of suicides in a 13-month span since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began publishing detainee death data in 2018.
The circumstances of many of those deaths have been questioned by families of the detainees, immigrant advocacy groups, and Democratic elected officials.
The deaths of these men are a troubling symptom of the United States’ growing detention landscape. Across the country, the Department of Homeland Security is enacting plans to convert industrial warehouses into detention centers. If current conditions inside immigration facilities are any indication, access to good medical care, healthy food and sufficient mental health resources are likely to be lacking in the new facilities DHS is constructing.
Supporters of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda may scoff at this — who cares if illegal immigrant criminals are holed up in a facility that isn’t so great? The issue is that we are no longer simply arresting and deporting “the worst of the worst,” as Trump and his hardline immigration allies like to say.
Sanchaz Dominguez and Diaz are clear examples of this. Neither man had a criminal history, let alone a violent one. Diaz may have been on his way to work at a Korean restaurant when he was picked up by immigration agents who were in the Minneapolis area as part of a surge there that has roiled the region over the last several months, infamously resulting in the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. The exact circumstances of Diaz’s arrest have not been made clear by ICE.
Sanchaz Dominguez took his own life shortly after arriving at the Robert Deyton detention center in Lovejoy, Georgia, which I confirmed by obtaining an autopsy report that provides detailed information about the circumstances of his death.
This, however, should not absolve U.S. immigration authorities or the Trump administration for its role in suicides of immigrants. The fact that men and women are choosing to take their own lives out of fear, stress, or desperation is an indictment of the cruelty of the systems and facilities in which they’ve been ensnared. Sanchaz Dominguez leaves behind two children, one of whom has Downs Syndrome. Diaz leaves behind two sons in his native Nicaragua.
While my reporting has provided some clarity on the deaths of Sanchaz Dominguez and others, many questions remain about the deaths of other men and women in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities. That’s because the deaths involve a labyrinth of local law enforcement agencies, medical examiners and coroners, and of course the Department of Homeland Security that takes significant effort to pierce. DHS and ICE answered none of my questions about some of these deaths. In some cases, local law enforcement and coroners were not helpful in providing information about their roles and investigations in deaths of immigrants.
In some cases, local officials outright refused to provide information or documents that could shed light on the circumstances of some of the deaths. This is part of a much larger problem with local law enforcement and medical examiners and coroners believing that they are simply not beholden to answering questions from reporters — an issue I’ve been dealing with for many years now. In other cases, local medical examiners and coroners have resisted transparency by demanding large fees for autopsy reports. Bottom line is, it takes a lot of work and patience to obtain these records, and it’s work that is crucial to understanding how so many detainees are dying under the Trump administration. I’ll have more on these deaths here at American Doom and elsewhere.
For now, here are some of deaths that I’ve identified as being highly questionable.
Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, of Nicaragua died on January 14, 2026 at Camp East Montana in El Paso. ICE has reported his death as a suicide, which the Diaz family has questioned. He is the first immigrant to die at Camp East Montana since the El Paso County Medical Examiner contradicted ICE over the death of Campos. American Doom has learned that the Army is conducting Diaz’s autopsy. This is an unexplained departure from past practice, and the Army has not answered questions about why it is handling Diaz’s autopsy instead of the El Paso County Medical Examiner. Diaz had no criminal history, and leaves behind two sons, ages 10 and 15.
Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, of Cuba died on January 3, 2026 at 10:16 p.m. after allegedly attempting to take his own life at Camp East Montana detention center at Fort Bliss in El Paso. An autopsy later conducted by the El Paso County Medical Examiner later found that Campos died from “asphyxia of the neck and torso” and ruled the death a homicide. Campos was a convicted sex offender who was arrested on July 14, 2025, and slated for deportation.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 29, of Mexico died on September 22, 2025 after he complained of severe rectal pain for a week while in custody at the Florence detention center in Arizona, according to an autopsy report obtained by American Doom. During that time, he was given only Tylenol, the autopsy report states. He was eventually taken to a hospital, where staff found a hemorrhage, kidney injury and a possible hematoma. A surgery was being considered, but Ayala-Uribe died of a heart attack before the surgery could take place.
Lorenzo Antonio Batrez-Vargas, 32, of Mexico, died on August 31, 2025 at the Florence detention center in Arizona. An autopsy report obtained by American Doom showed he died of complications from influenza B, diabetes and COVID. Batrez-Vargas had previously been arrested for non-violent drug and alcohol-related offenses.
Brayan Garzon-Rayo, 27, of Colombia, died on April 8, 2025 at the Phelps County Jail in Rolla, Missouri. A coroner who spoke to American Doom said he had viewed video from inside the facility that confirmed the cause of death as suicide. The coroner, Ernie Coverdell, did not say whether the video showed Garzon-Rayo’s death. The Missouri State Patrol, which conducted an investigation into Garzon-Rayo’s death, did not answer questions about the video, and has not responded to a public records request for investigative materials. Coverdell and another coroner, Darren Dake, oversaw Garzon-Rayo’s autopsy. Both men have made disparaging comments about immigrants on their publicly-viewable Facebook pages. Garzon-Rayo had a non-violent criminal history that included fraud.
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