Immigration

Trump's ICE Posted Its Own Reviews of Detainee Deaths, Found Staff Broke Medical Standards in Six of Them, Then Pulled Them Offline Four Days Later

ICE's own mortality reviews found detention staff broke safe standards of medical care for at least six people who died in custody in 2025: no CPR for a collapsed woman, an inhaler for a man with pneumonia, a seizure patient's labs never run. The agency took the reports down after a reporter's lawyer noticed them.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 01, 2026

Trump's ICE Posted Its Own Reviews of Detainee Deaths, Found Staff Broke Medical Standards in Six of Them, Then Pulled Them Offline Four Days Later — Photo: John Whitney / NurPhoto via Getty Images, via The Intercept

When someone dies in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, ICE's own medical corps writes a "mortality review" to judge whether the person got proper care. On September 25, ICE posted eight of those reviews, all for deaths in 2025, in its public records library.

Four days later, after a lawyer for an Intercept reporter noticed them, the documents disappeared. ICE appeared to pull them offline and remove them from search results. Copies survived in internet archives.

Here is what the agency didn't want sitting on its website: in at least six of the eight deaths, ICE's own reviewers found that detention staff broke safe standards of medical care.

What ICE's reviewers found

The reviews describe staff who mismanaged medication, skipped physical exams, ignored lab orders, delayed treatment for sick detainees, and failed to give life-saving care in emergencies, The Intercept reported. A few of the cases:

Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, 32. He arrived at the Florence Detention Center in Arizona complaining of dizziness and blurred vision, with lab results showing uncontrolled diabetes. When his X-rays showed pneumonia, he got antibiotics that "did not align" with CDC guidelines. When he couldn't breathe, he was handed an asthma inhaler. The next day, an employee found him unresponsive. "This is a case of pretty egregiously managed care," said Dr. Katherine Peeler of Physicians for Human Rights, who reviewed the files.
Johnny Noviello, 49. He entered ICE's Miami facility with a history of seizures and high blood pressure. The labs the intake nurse ordered were never done. Staff put him in solitary "for increased observation" and took his medicine to hand out themselves. Three days later, he still hadn't received it. He died of what his autopsy called a preventable form of kidney failure. When he was found on the floor, staff did not "provide effective CPR."
Marie Ange Blaise, the only woman to die in ICE custody so far in Trump's second term. She collapsed at the Broward Transitional Center in Florida. Staff "failed to initiate" CPR "despite Ms. Blaise's pulselessness." For 13 minutes, they "monitored" her while they waited for an ambulance.
Chaofeng Ge. His transfer file noted a past suicide attempt, but the provider in charge "did not take appropriate action." When guards found him hanging, they left to call for help before cutting him down, delaying life-saving measures by five minutes.

In one of the two cases ICE's reviewers judged adequate, ICE's own medical staff had written that they didn't have the resources to care for the man, a 55-year-old with dementia, and asked for his release.

More people, less oversight

At least 56 people have died in ICE custody under the second Trump administration, according to The Intercept.

The administration's deportation push drove the number of people in detention from about 40,000 in January 2025 to nearly 66,000 by December, according to the American Immigration Council. At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security gutted oversight and transparency, The Intercept reported.

"We're seeing record numbers of people, including elderly people, people who are pregnant, people who have serious medical issues," said Stacy Suh of Detention Watch Network. Reviewing the findings, she put it more simply: "You can't get well in a detention center."

Taking the death reviews offline fits a pattern we've documented. ICE has erased thousands of detainees from its public locator, so families can't find where loved ones are held, and it stopped paying hospitals for detainees' medical care. A Senate report described what detainees at one facility were told: "You only have three rights here: drink, sleep, eat."

The short version

ICE's own mortality reviews found detention staff broke safe medical standards in at least six of eight 2025 deaths they examined: a man with pneumonia given an inhaler, a seizure patient whose labs were never run, a woman left without CPR for 13 minutes. ICE posted the reviews on September 25 and pulled them four days later. At least 56 people have died in ICE custody under the second Trump administration.