Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington, says the number of deaths in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention has reached an “unprecedented” level in her nearly two decades of monitoring conditions.
“We’ve had long-standing concerns about ICE detention and the facilities and the conditions that are in the detention centers, but as ICE has ramped up so incredibly rapidly, often with no-bid contracts, people who have no experience running detention centers and the mass deportations, it’s all gotten much worse,” Jayapal said.
As the top Democrat on the House immigration subcommittee, she said one of the clearest indicators for her is the rising death toll.
“One tangible way that I track that, as the top Democrat on the immigration subcommittee, is I get notices about deaths in ICE detention and the number of deaths that have happened just since Trump took office are really stunning,” she added.
Jayapal is among a growing group of lawmakers alarmed by what is happening inside ICE facilities, pressing for detailed explanations about the uptick in deaths under the current administration.
Recently, the family of a Chinese national who died in ICE custody has been demanding answers. Thirty-two-year-old Chaofeng Ge was found with a bedsheet around his neck in a shower stall in August. According to an autopsy report, he was discovered “hog-tied,” leaving his family unclear about what actually happened at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center (MVPC) in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania.
“What caught my eye about this one is we were not given the information about the autopsy, and any death of somebody hanging is horrific, so that caught my attention first, and then the reporting after on the autopsy, those were not details that were given to us,” Jayapal said, noting that lawmakers have now launched their own investigation into Ge’s death.
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, at least 12 ICE detainees have died in the agency’s custody, either in detention centers or in hospitals. That figure already matches the total number of deaths in the entire 2024 fiscal year. Experts had warned earlier that more deaths were likely as arrests of alleged undocumented immigrants increased.
Jayapal said she has been scrutinizing immigration detention conditions since 2008, and that the work has become significantly harder under Trump’s renewed administration.
Under U.S. law, members of Congress are supposed to have access to ICE detention facilities for inspections. Yet there have been repeated instances where lawmakers were blocked, including at centers in New Jersey and Chicago.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has argued that there is a formal process for such visits, including a 72-hour notice requirement, and has accused some lawmakers of using facility visits to score political points rather than to promote transparency.
Jayapal insists on the importance of direct access, pointing to her efforts during the Biden administration to close a detention center in Georgia where women were allegedly subjected to forced sterilizations.
“That detention center is now being reopened by the Trump administration,” she said.
DHS has repeatedly pushed back on criticism from members of Congress, human rights groups, and immigrants themselves about conditions in ICE custody. In October, as part of an effort to counter what it called “false reporting,” DHS issued a statement defending its standards.
“Any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false. In fact, ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members,” the department said.
Officials have also stressed that every death in custody is treated with seriousness and investigated thoroughly. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that “all in-custody deaths are tragic, taken seriously, and are thoroughly investigated by law enforcement. ICE takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously.”
Jayapal acknowledged that some facilities do provide adequate care, but said the overall landscape has shifted.
“It is now unprecedented, because at least before we were able to have the inspector general issue a report, and there were some recommendations that were taken,” she said.
Today, she believes oversight and accountability have eroded, especially as ICE rapidly expands its footprint with newly opened or repurposed facilities to house the more than 100,000 immigrants now accounted for in the agency’s enlarged budget.
Her push for greater scrutiny comes at a politically fraught time. Recently, Democrats who warned military personnel that they are not obligated to follow illegal orders from the Trump administration were accused of sedition, with the president calling for their arrest.
Jayapal said that despite the risks, the severity of what she is seeing motivates her to keep going.
“Because I’ve been doing the shadow hearings, because I’m the top Democrat on the committee, because I’m still very closely tied in to a lot of groups around the country that work on immigration, [they] call me,” she said. “I have never seen anything like this, and I have worked on this for decades now. I have never seen anything like the violence, and the cruelty, and the inhumanity, both in the streets and in the detention centers, and so the urgency of addressing it is just so great.”
