IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer report deaths of detainees who have recently been released from its custody, in a change that could obscure the full human cost of the Trump administration’s mass detention policies.
The move rescinds a 2021 policy implemented by the Biden administration that required ICE to report to Congress and investigate deaths of detainees that occur within 30 days of their release.
The
goal of the 2021 policy was to ensure that ICE could not avoid accountability for deaths by releasing severely ill people from custody. Detainees who were brain-dead or suffering from infection, for instance, have died shortly after ICE released them in the past.
Two health experts who have investigated ICE custody deaths criticized the change Friday.
“Tracking deaths immediately after custody is a standard approach that allows health systems in jails, prisons and immigration detention to learn about gaps in care that may occur before a person leaves a facility,” said Dr. Homer Venters, former chief medical officer of the New York City jail system. “Eliminating reporting of these deaths represents a willful act of ignoring the most serious health outcome that can reflect inadequacies in care or help track outbreaks."
ICE detainees also routinely die at hospitals where they are taken for treatment after their conditions deteriorate inside detention facilities, records show. Those detainees, however, have generally been considered to remain in ICE custody.
The Washington Post first reported the policy change Thursday. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, later confirmed the move in a statement that framed it as “common sense.”
“Under this updated policy, when an individual is no longer in ICE custody then ICE will no longer be responsible for monitoring or reviewing deaths that may occur,” the statement said.
The statement said ICE remained committed to transparency and that the revised policy includes procedures for “timely notification, review and reporting of deaths occurring in ICE custody.” ICE did not immediately release its full updated policy.
The decision to limit death reporting comes as a greater number of ICE detainees have been dying. At least 18 detainees have died since Jan. 1, which is on pace to surpass last year’s death toll, which was the highest in two decades. Detainees are dying by suicide at an unprecedented pace, and experts say many other deaths from natural causes likely would have been preventable with timely medical care.
Dr. Sanjay Basu, a University of California-San Francisco epidemiologist who recently published an analysis of more than 270 ICE custody deaths, said the policy change will “make the mortality statistics appear lower without any actual improvement in care.”
“The period immediately following release is when deaths attributable to inadequate care during confinement become apparent,” he said. “Missed diagnoses, interrupted medications, untreated infections, and decompensating chronic conditions don’t always kill someone while they’re still in the building.”
As of early April, ICE was holding more than 60,000 detainees across its national network of detention facilities, up from around 40,000 at the start of President Donald Trump's second term. ICE denies allegations that detainees suffer from medical neglect, saying they receive comprehensive health care services.
Before announcing Thursday’s policy change, DHS acting assistant secretary Lauren Bis told the AP on Tuesday that no detainees died in its custody in May. That was the first month without a detainee death since November. At the time, Bis did not address AP questions about whether any death reporting policies had changed.
“As we have repeatedly stated, deaths in ICE custody are exceedingly rare,” she said then.
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Associated Press reporter Michael Biesecker in Washington, D.C., contributed.
