2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in two decades. Here are the 31 people who died in custody

Some of those who died in detention had arrived in the US recently, seeking asylum. Others had arrived years ago, some as young children.

Thirty-one people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in 2025 – making it the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades, as the Trump administration moved to detain a record number of people.

Some of those who died in detention had arrived in the US recently, seeking asylum. Others had arrived years ago, some as young children. Some had been apprehended on criminal charges or had served time for convictions; others had been picked up in the administration’s indiscriminate ICE raids.

They died of seizure and heart failure, stroke, respiratory failure, tuberculosis or suicide. Some died at ICE detention centers and field offices, others after they had been transferred to hospitals, but were still under ICE custody. In some cases, their families and lawyers have alleged, they died of neglect, after repeatedly trying and failing to get medical care.

These deaths occurred as the Trump administration ramped up its immigration operations, detaining a record number of people in December. The agency was holding 68,440 people in detention in mid-December; nearly 75% of them had no criminal convictions. December was also the deadliest month in ICE custody – six people died.

As detention facilities across the US grow more crowded, human rights advocates, immigration lawyers and lawmakers have reported unsanitary conditions, inadequate food and poor medical care. The number of deaths this year marks the highest level since 2004.

“This is a result of the deteriorating conditions inside of ICE detention,” said Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, a non-profit that has been tracking immigration detention deaths for years.

The Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses ICE, denied that conditions in detention were declining. “It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the agency. She added that the average rate of death remained low, saying that “consistent with data over the last decade, death rates in custody are 0.00007%”, but did not provide the underlying data for that figure.

Advocates, however, warned that as the administration detains more people, ICE facilities will continue to see more deaths.

“I’m definitely worried that in the coming years, we could see more of this as ICE is trying to expand its facilities, detain and deport more people,” said Ghandehari.

The Guardian has been tracking everyone who died in custody this year. These are their stories.

23 January

Genry Ruiz Guillén, 29, of Honduras, died in a hospital in Hialeah, Florida.

Guillén had come to the United States from Honduras in 2023. He worked in construction.

In October 2024, he was apprehended by local law enforcement, and then transferred to the Krome immigrant detention center in South Florida. His mother told Univision that in December, Guillén called her from detention and told her he wasn’t feeling well, and that he was experiencing fainting spells. It was the last time she spoke with him, she said.

According to ICE, Guillén “had difficulty breathing, prompting a medical emergency” before he died.

“I never thought my son would come to this country to die like this, nor did I ever think I would receive that news,” his mother told Univision.

29 January

Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, 45, of Ethiopia, died at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.

He had come to the US in August 2024, and was apprehended by the border patrol, which transferred him to the Eloy detention center. He had cleared the initial steps to apply for asylum according to ICE.

In December 2024, he reported to staff at the detention center that he had an elevated heart rate and fatigue, and was seen by healthcare providers who said he had a possible lymphoma diagnosis, according to ICE.

20 February

Maksym Chernyak.

Maksym Chernyak, a Ukrainian citizen, died of an apparent stroke at a hospital in Miami.

Chernyak, 44, fled Kyiv with his long term-partner during the Russia-Ukraine war and came to the US on humanitarian parole, according to the Miami Herald.

Chernyak was arrested on 26 January over a domestic violence claim. His partner described the incident as a “family misunderstanding” exacerbated by a language barrier, according to the Miami Herald. He was “kind and warm-hearted”, she told the outlet. Chernyak was then transferred to the Krome detention center in Miami.

While in custody, he experienced “vomiting and seizure activity”, according to ICE. Chernyak was then transferred to a hospital on 18 February, where staff “established a stroke alert due to unresponsive state”, according to ICE. A preliminary cause of death was listed as “bleeding from the brain”.

An investigation by the Miami Herald said that medical experts who reviewed his case have raised concerns about whether Chernyak received adequate care due to the length of time that elapsed before Krome staff called 911. ICE denied allegations that Chernyak did not receive proper medical attention.

23 February

Juan Alexis Tineo-Martinez, 44, of the Dominican Republic, died at the Centro Medico hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

He was taken into custody by US Customs and Border Protection air marine operations two days prior to his death, according to ICE.

Agents contacted local 911 after Tineo-Martinez said he was experiencing leg pain, according to the agency, and he was transferred to the hospital for evaluation. The Dominican embassy in Puerto Rico did not respond to the Guardian’s query about Tineo-Martinez’s cause of death.

8 April

Brayan Garzón-Rayo, 27, of Colombia, died at the Phelps county jail in Rolla, Missouri.

Garzón-Rayo’s mother, Lucy Garzón, told St Louis Public Radio that she and her family came to the US in November 2023, fleeing growing threats of violence and harassment from law enforcement in Bogotá.

In March Garzón-Rayo was charged with a misdemeanor for credit card fraud, and then transferred to ICE custody. He spoke to his mother a few days before he died, Lucy Garzón told SLPR, and complained about stomach pains and the poor quality of the jail’s food.

Lucy Garzón told SLPR that officials told her that her son appeared to have died by suicide. ICE has not confirmed an official cause of death.

His mother said that Garzón-Rayo loved riding his motorcycle, watching soccer and sledding after fresh snowfall.

16 April

Nhon Ngoc Nguyen, 55, died at a hospital in El Paso, Texas.

He was apprehended in February in Albuquerque, according to his family’s lawyer, Tin Nguyen, and his partner and friends couldn’t locate him for days. Eventually, they realised he was being held at the El Paso processing center in Texas. Tin Nguyen said that Nhon Ngoc had been showing early signs of dementia and possible side effects from a head injury prior to his detention.

Shortly after his detention, he began experiencing health complications, Tin Nguyen told the Guardian. ICE eventually offered to release him, so long as his family was able to provide him with round-the-clock acute care, the attorney said – but he didn’t have health insurance and his family was unable to pay for such care. In the meantime, Nhon Ngoc’s condition began rapidly worsening. He died of acute pneumonia, according to ICE.

Nhon Ngoc had come to the US in 1983 and became a legal resident as part of the Refugee Act of 1980. In 1991, he was convicted of second-degree murder and served time at San Quentin prison, in California. After his sentence, in 2013 ICE opened a deportation case against him. While it was pending, he moved to Albuquerque and began rebuilding his life.

He had a loving partner and a huge community of friends, Tin Nguyen said: “He was kind.”

25 April

Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old citizen of Haiti, died at the Broward transitional center in Pompano Beach, Florida.

Blaise entered the US on an unknown date and location, according to ICE. She was apprehended by Customs and Border Protection on 12 February while attempting to board a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, according to authorities.

ICE has not released an official cause of death. According to reporting by WLRN Public Media on the medical examiner’s report about her death, Blaise spoke to her son hours before she died. “She complained of having chest pains and abdominal cramps, and when she asked the detention staff to see a physician, they refused her,” her son told investigators, according to WLRN Public Media. According to the outlet, ICE offered a conflicting account, saying that Blaise did not take blood pressure medication she was offered.

5 May

Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado.

Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado, 68, died while in transit from a local jail to a federal detention center, the first detainee to die in this manner in at least a decade.

Delgado was originally from El Huariche, Mexico. During his nearly 40 years in the US, he raised a large family and worked on tobacco and vegetable farms, according to previous Guardian reporting.

Delgado, who did not have legal status, was apprehended in Statenville, Georgia, on a parole violation on 9 April. His family told the Guardian they grew alarmed by his deterioration in jail, and worried about the medications he was being given.

Eventually, Delgado was transferred from the jail to Georgia’s Stewart detention center. But he never made it. Instead, he became “unresponsive” in the transport van with highly elevated blood pressure; the driver called 911, but Delgado died on the scene.

ICE has said the cause of death is under investigation and his family said they are still waiting for answers. “It bothers me,” his son, Junior, told the Guardian in June. “He was a great-grandfather.”

7 June

Jesus Molina-Veya, a 45-year-old citizen of Mexico, died at the Stewart detention center in Lumpkin, Georgia.

Molina-Veya entered the country without authorization on numerous occasions, starting in 1999, according to authorities. During his time in the US, Molina-Veya was arrested on charges including child molestation, a hit-and-run and possession of controlled substances, ICE said.

On 7 June, Molina-Veya was found unresponsive in his cell. While an official cause of death has not been released, an ICE spokesperson has called the death “an apparent suicide”. His death was the second reported in Georgia within a month, a state with one of the highest numbers of detainees in the US.

23 June

Johnny Noviello was found unresponsive at the Bureau of Prisons’ federal detention center in Miami.

Noviello moved with family from Quebec to Florida in 1988 and became a lawful permanent resident in 1991. His father, Angelo, told the Guardian that Johnny was diagnosed with epilepsy shortly after he was born, and would often become ill during the winter. So the family settled in Daytona Beach, seeking a warmer climate.

Noviello, 49, spent most of his life in Florida. He worked at a Dollar Tree and loved going to the beach and playing pool in his spare time, his father said. He maintained close ties to Canada, making regular trips to see family in Montreal.

He spent time in prison for selling drugs, including hydrocodone and oxycodone, but was released early on good behavior. He was apprehended by ICE agents on 15 May at the Florida department of corrections probation office. Noviello’s cause of death is under investigation.

Noviello’s father said the family has not received an autopsy report. “We’re in limbo, we don’t know what happened,” he said. “I don’t know why they didn’t send him to Canada right away.”

26 June

Isidro Pérez, 75, of Cuba died at a Florida hospital of undetermined causes.

According to the Miami Herald, Pérez was a mechanic and fisher from Cuba, and arrived in the US in 1966 at the age of 16.

He was convicted of marijuana possession in the 1980s and served time in prison. His stepdaughter told the Herald that, during his time behind bars, Pérez studied to become a mechanic, and that when he got out of prison, he began rescuing animals. “We’re all humans, you know, we make mistakes, but we remake ourselves,” she told the outlet.

On 5 June, five immigration officers apprehended Pérez at a community center. Officers took him to the Krome north service processing center in Miami. Three weeks later, Pérez died in ICE custody.

19 July

Tien Xuan Phan, 55, died at the Methodist hospital north-east in Live Oak, Texas.

Phan was detained earlier in June for failing to leave the US after a removal order, and held at the Karnes county immigration processing center in Karnes City. He was transferred to a hospital for evaluation after experiencing seizures and vomiting, and becoming unresponsive, according to ICE. His cause of death remains under investigation.

5 August

Chaofeng Ge.

Chaofeng Ge, 32, of China, died four days after entering ICE custody in Pennsylvania.

Ge was born in 1992 in Luoyang, Henan province, China, and worked in construction. He arrived in the US via the southern border in 2023, when he was detained for unlawful entry. According to an attorney for his family, he spent his time while incarcerated trying to learn English, practicing by writing out scripture and short stories.

He was eventually released and settled in Queens, New York, where he worked as a delivery driver, according to his attorney. In 2025, he was arrested for possessing several stolen credit card numbers in his cell phone and for unauthorized access to a device, and was eventually detained by ICE. ICE and the Pennsylvania state police said that he died by suicide while detained.

His family filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in the southern district of New York, requesting more information about his death. “I am devastated by the loss of my brother and by the knowledge that he was suffering so greatly in that detention center,” said Yaofeng Ge in a public statement. “He did not deserve to be treated that way. I want justice for my brother, answers as to how this could have happened, and accountability for those responsible for his death.”

Ge is survived by four siblings and his parents, who live in China.

31 August

Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, 32, died after he was detained at the Central Arizona Florence correctional complex.

Known as “Lenchito” by friends and family, Batrez Vargas was a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) recipient who was brought to the US from Mexico as a five-year-old. He was arrested by police in Flagstaff, Arizona, on 2 August, and charged with possession and use of drug paraphernalia. Immigration enforcement agents said they took Batrez Vargas into custody in Phoenix before transferring him to the detention center in Florence, where his family believes he contracted Covid-19, according to media reports.

ICE said that his cause of death was unknown and remained under investigation.

“We want justice. We want this to never happen to anyone else, especially not to undocumented immigrants,” Jaime Vargas, Batrez Vargas’s uncle, told Univision.

8 September

Oscar Rascon Duarte, of Mexico, died at a long-term medical facility while in ICE custody.

Duarte, 58, had first come to the US in 1976, was deported in 2004 and then re-entered via the southern border. He served a 20-year sentence in prison for attempted sexual contact with a minor and child molestation. After he completed his sentence, he was transferred to ICE custody.

At first, he was held at the Florence staging facility, according to ICE, but was later transferred to Promise hospital in Mesa, Arizona, “due to late-stage Alzheimer disease, right kidney cancer, and hepatitis C all of which required a higher level of care”, where he eventually died, ICE said.

18 September

Santos Banegas Reyes, 42, of Honduras, died at the Nassau county correctional center in New York.

He was a construction worker and a father of two daughters, one of whom lives in the US while the other lives in Honduras, according to local news reports.

He was apprehended on 17 September by federal immigration agents just hours before he was found “not breathing” in his cell at the Nassau county correctional center. According to ICE, the preliminary cause of death appeared to be liver failure complicated by alcoholism. His family is contesting his cause of death, and have requested an independent autopsy.

22 September

Ismael Ayala Uribe.

Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, died after falling ill at the Adelanto detention center in California.

His mother, Lucía Uribe, told the Guardian that Ismael had come to the US from Mexico when he was five, crossing the US southern border along with his sister and cousin to join his mother and father. The family settled in Westminster, California, and later moved to Huntington Beach.

He spent a year studying graphic design, and then began working – first at a factory that produced cleaning supplies and later at car washes. Lucía said that Ismael loved listening to music. He was always willing to help others, and often helped his sister, a single mother, with childcare.

Uribe had been protected from deportation under the Daca program, but he was denied renewal because he had been convicted of driving under the influence.

He was apprehended in August during an immigration raid at the Fountain Valley Auto Wash, where he had worked for about 15 years, and was transferred to Adelanto. There, he fell ill – first with a cough and fever, and then other medical complications, according to his family. He was transferred to a hospital, where he died.

His mother learned of the detention through one of his co-workers, and said she was unaware of any medical condition he had. “I want to see less medical negligence,” she told the Guardian, referring to conditions at ICE detention centers.

ICE said Uribe’s cause of death was “still under investigation”.

24 September

Norlan Guzman-Fuentes.

Norlan Guzman-Fuentes, 37, of El Salvador, was killed when a gunman opened fire at the ICE field office where he was being held.

He is survived by his partner, Berenice Prieto, and four children. He had worked mowing lawns and trimming trees, and in his free time he liked fishing around the Dallas-Forth Worth area, his loved ones told CBS.

Guzman-Fuentes was arrested by Dallas police in late August, due to an outstanding warrant for driving under the influence and other charges that were later dropped.

“We had just bought our first home together, and he worked hard every single day to make sure our children had what they needed. His death is a senseless tragedy that has left our family shattered,” Prieto said in a public statement shortly after his death. “I do not know how to explain to our children that their father is gone.”

29 September

Miguel Ángel García Medina.

Miguel Ángel García Medina, 31, of Mexico, was killed outside an ICE field office in Dallas.

García Medina is survived by his wife, Stephany Gauffeny, two stepdaughters and a son – who was born three days after his death – his mother and grandparents, who live in Mexico, and three siblings.

“Everyone tells me the same thing: he was very funny. He always made us laugh, and that’s why we miss him so much,” Gauffeny told the Guardian. “He was very goofy, you almost always saw him laughing, joking or singing.”

Gauffeny – who clarified to the Guardian that her husband was referred to in an ICE press release as Miguel García-Hernández, his stepfather’s last name – also said: “He was a very present father. Sometimes he wouldn’t go to work if my daughters needed something.”

García Medina was born in San Luis Potosí, a central state in Mexico, and crossed the US border without papers when he was a teenager, settling in Arlington, Texas. He met Gauffeny at a party shortly after and the two were friends for years before they became a couple.

He had lived in the Dallas area for nearly two decades, most recently making a living painting and remodeling homes. In his free time, he liked to work on his truck, Gauffeny said.

He ended up in ICE custody early on 24 September, after a short time in jail for a DUI. While he was shackled inside a government van outside the ICE field office, a gunman opened fire. He died five days later of his gunshot wounds.

He would have turned 32 on 5 January, which is also the day of his 10th wedding anniversary. Gauffeny told the Guardian that he had been in the process of obtaining a green card and planning to open his own painting company. “He made business cards and said he was going to buy the equipment,” she said. “He was so excited and had a lot going for him.”

29 September

Huabing Xie, of China, died at El Centro regional medical center in Calexico, California.

The border patrol had apprehended Xie on 12 September in Indio, California, and transferred him to the Imperial regional detention facility, according to ICE. In 2023, he had been placed under removal proceedings, the agency said.

The agency said that Xie experienced “what appeared to be a seizure and became unresponsive” and medical personnel at the detention center tried to administer life-saving measures, before emergency medical services arrived and took him to the hospital, where he died.

4 October

Leo Cruz-Silva, a 34-year-old man from Mexico, died while detained by ICE at the Ste Genevieve county jail in Missouri.

A few days before he died, he was detained by police in Festus, Missouri, for public intoxication, according to federal immigration officials. The police then handed him over to ICE, which served him with a notice that the agency would reinstate a previous deportation order. Cruz-Silva had likely entered the US before 2010, when he was a child, according to immigration officials, and was expelled twice after re-entering via the southern border.

On 4 October, Cruz-Silva died by apparent suicide, according to ICE.

About 50 people organized a vigil to mourn him. “He was a person, he was a brother, he was a son, he was a person,” Susie Johnson, the founder of Abide in Love, a non-profit that works with ICE detainees in Missouri jails, told St Louis Public Radio. “All loss of life, in my opinion, is tragic, and I hate that it happened in our community,” she said.

11 October

Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh, 67, died after being detained at the Krome detention center in south-west Miami-Dade county.

Saleh, who was from Jordan, first came to the US in 1994 and became a lawful permanent resident a few months after he arrived in the country.

Saleh managed a convenience store in Fort Lauderdale. In 2017, he was charged – along with a dozen other clerks and store owners – in a scheme to exchange food stamps for cash. He had served time in prison, and after his release in 2020, ICE placed him under an “order of supervision” that required him to regularly check in with immigration officers. In 2025, he was apprehended and placed at Krome.

He was taken to a local hospital due to a high fever, and became unresponsive. A physician listed his preliminary cause of death as cardiac arrest.

23 October

Josué Castro Rivera, a 25-year-old man from Honduras, was killed while trying to flee ICE agents in Virginia.

He had been on his way to a gardening job when ICE agents pulled over his vehicle, his brother, Henry Castro, told reporters. When agents tried to detain Castro Rivera and three other passengers, he fled, running into traffic. He was struck while crossing Interstate 264 in Norfolk.

According to his brother, Castro Rivera had come to the US four years ago, and had been working to help support family in Honduras. “He had a very good heart,” Castro told the Associated Press. “He didn’t deserve everything that happened to him.”

23 October

Gabriel Garcia Aviles, a 54-year-old from Mexico who had been living in the US for 30 years, died about a week after being detained by immigration agents.

Aviles was a father of two and grandfather of three, according to his family. His daughter, Mariel, told LA Taco she used to speak with him every day, and described him as someone who was “always happy and loved bikes”.

Customs and Border Protection agents grabbed him during a “roving patrol” in the southern California city of Costa Mesa on 14 October. Mariel last spoke with him shortly after he was apprehended, she told LA Taco. In the days that followed, his family tried repeatedly to contact him, but said that officers at the Adelanto detention facility refused to connect them.

A week after his detention, Mariel received a call informing her that her father was in critical condition at the Victor Valley global medical center. The last time his family was able to see Aviles, he was unconscious in a hospital room guarded by immigration officers, Mariel told LA Taco.

His family has questioned ICE’s assessment that Aviles died of “natural causes” and complications of alcohol withdrawal. He had been healthy, his daughter said, prior to his detention.

25 October

Kai Yin Wong, 63, of China, died at a hospital in San Antonio, Texas.

Wong had first come to the US in 1970 as a permanent resident. He was convicted of sexual abuse of a child in 2010, and served a 14-year sentence. He was then transferred to ICE custody and ordered deported from the US.

Before his death, he had been detained at the South Texas ICE processing center in Pearsall. In October, he was first transferred to a local hospital after he complained of shortness of breath, and then airlifted to another hospital in San Antonio when he started to experience heart failure and possible pneumonia. He was transferred to another medical center for heart valve repair surgery, according to officials, and died from complications.

3 December

Francisco Gaspar-Andrés, a 48-year-old man from Guatemala, died at an El Paso hospital due to suspected kidney and liver failure, according to ICE.

He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Lucía Pedro Juan, and their four daughters. The couple had run a plant nursery outside Miami for a decade, and Pedro Juan has described him as a hard-working husband who fought to provide for their family.

According to an interview Pedro Juan gave to the El Paso Times, the couple had gone on a grocery run during the Labor Day holiday when they were pulled over by a highway patrol officer who asked to see their identification papers, and then turned them over to ICE; they were eventually separated by immigration officers. “I hugged him, I tickled him on his ribs and I gave him a kiss on his cheek,” she said of their goodbye. “I never saw him again.” Pedro Juan was detained for three months and later deported to Guatemala.

Gaspar-Andrés ended up at Camp East Montana, a detention facility at the Texas military base known as Fort Bliss. The American Civil Liberties Union has called the facility a “human and civil rights catastrophe” following several reports of injuries, illnesses and abuses.

Gaspar-Andrés was repeatedly seen by medical staff for symptoms including bleeding gums, sore throat and body aches, fever, jaundice and hypertension. He was transferred to a hospital on 16 November, where he was diagnosed with hyponatremia. He was later placed on dialysis and palliative care, before he died in December, according to ICE.

His wife told the El Paso Times that Gaspar-Andrés had been relatively healthy prior to his detention, and disputed ICE’s assertion that he had hypertension or other underlying conditions.

5 December

Pete Sumalo Montejo, 72, died at the Valley Baptist medical center in Harlingen.

He had first come to the US from the Philippines in 1962, as a lawful permanent resident. In 1992, he was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and in 2024 he was convicted for possession of a controlled substance, according to ICE.

In February, ICE detained Montejo at the Montgomery processing center, where he began to experience several medical complications including shortness of breath and hypoxia, anemia, and septic shock resulting from pneumonia, according to the agency.

6 December

Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani, 48, of Pakistan, died at a hospital in Fort Worth, Texas.

He first came to the US in 1996 as a nonimmigrant visitor, according to ICE, and overstayed his visa. He was arrested by border patrol in 2017, in North Dakota, and ordered to leave the US after he did not appear at a 2019 immigration court hearing. Then, in June, ICE located him at a jail in Euless, Texas, where he had been booked.

He spent more than five months at the Prairieland detention center in Alvarado, Texas, before he died. ICE has said Sachwani had a history of medical conditions – including chronic respiratory, liver and kidney issues – and died of “natural causes”.

12 December

Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old man from Haiti, died at the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, one day after he was taken into custody.

ICE said Brutus died of “suspected natural causes”. His cousin told NBC New York that the family is still searching for answers about what happened. “We haven’t had some kind of closure surrounding his death,” Evans Belony, his cousin, told the outlet. “He was like a loved one, that we all loved, he was like a brother.”

Brutus came to the US in 2023 as an asylum seeker, his cousin said, who added that Brutus had been “very depressed and very sad” following the death of his mother.

The conditions at Delaney Hall, where Brutus was held, have come under scrutiny from lawmakers and advocates. Andy Kim, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, toured Delaney Hall the day after Brutus’s death and spoke to about 80 detainees, who he said described receiving poor medical care and “disgusting” meals that included raw meat. He called for the facility to be closed.

14 December

Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir, 46, of Eritrea died of “medical distress”, according to the agency.

According to court documents obtained by the Daily Voice, Abdulkadir filed for an emergency federal motion for medical relief three days before he died.

Abdulkadir had been an imam at the Islamic Center of Northeast Ohio, and had gained a green card in 2018. In 2023, he was charged with wire fraud and misuse of public funds and later sentenced to prison. Supporters wrote to a US district judge requesting leniency, arguing that Abdulkadir may not have fully understood the application process for the benefits programs he was convicted of misusing.

“We miss his teachings, his knowledge. We crave him for our own sake, not just for him. He’s an actively good man,” a supporter wrote, according to the Daily Voice.

ICE took custody of him in July 2024, and detained him at the Moshannon Valley processing center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, where he died a year and a half later. Community members raising funds for his funeral services said that Abdulkadir “spent his life selflessly caring for others, nurturing our children with the wisdom of the Qur’an, healing family rifts, and offering kindness to everyone he met. His boundless generosity touched countless souls, and the space he leaves behind feels immeasurably quiet and deep.”

15 December

Nenko Stanev Gantchev, 56, was born in Bulgaria and died at the North Lake processing center in Baldwin, Michigan.

Gantchev was “discovered unresponsive on the floor of his cell during routine checks”, and his official cause of death is still under investigation, according to ICE.

He had first arrived in the US in 1995. According to the agency, Gantchev was denied a green card in 2009 and, in 2023, was ordered by an immigration judge to return to Bulgaria. He was apprehended by immigration agents in September as part of the administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz”, which sent hundreds of federal agents to Chicago to crack down on unauthorized immigrants.

His wife, a US citizen, told the Serbian Times that Gantchev had type 2 diabetes and had complained for months about his deteriorating health. “A man who lived here for 30 years, worked hard, paid taxes – and they treated him like an animal,” Ganchev’s wife told the outlet. “They treated him as if he were a murderer.” She learned of his death on 16 December, the day of the couple’s eighth wedding anniversary.