The risk of dying in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody is now higher than at any time in the past 15 years except during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a UCLA School of Law analysis released on Thursday, October 29. The analysis found that death rates in immigration detention facilities over the past year reached twice the historical average.
Source: MyNewsLA / City News Service
The findings come from a new public dashboard published by the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project, which tracks national mortality rates in immigration detention from January 2009 to the present. The dashboard combines individual death records with estimates of the number of people held in ICE detention over time, the researchers said.
Crucially, the researchers say the rise is not explained simply by ICE holding more people. Mortality rates in the dashboard are calculated using person-years — a measure of the total time people spend in custody, under which one person detained for a year counts the same as 12 people detained for one month each. That method accounts for both the size of the detained population and how long people remain locked up, allowing comparisons across periods when ICE held very different numbers of people.
“When more people are detained, we might expect more deaths even if the mortality rate stays the same,” said UCLA law professor Sharon Dolovich, director of the Behind Bars Data Project. “But this data shows that deaths are too high to be explained by population growth alone. ICE custody has become deadlier. That finding demands closer scrutiny of conditions in ICE custody.”
How the count is built
The analysis draws on individually verified death records compiled by lawyer and journalist Andrew Free, together with detention population estimates compiled by the Vera Institute of Justice using ICE records made available by the Deportation Data Project. The Behind Bars Data Project, founded by Dolovich in 2020 to track deaths behind bars, first published its full ICE dataset in March 2026 — the first comprehensive, searchable compilation of deaths in ICE custody, covering nearly 300 people who have died since the agency's creation in 2003, UCLA Law said.
Source: UCLA School of Law
UCLA notes that Congress requires ICE to notify the public of deaths in custody and to release detailed reports on the circumstances, but that those reports have often been inconsistent and scattered across dozens of records — one reason the project spent years aggregating them into a single resource for researchers, journalists, advocates, policymakers and the public.
Other counts point the same way
The UCLA finding is consistent with earlier independent counts this year. Reuters reported in June 2026 that ICE detention was recording about one death for every 1,630 detainees, compared with about one death per 3,848 detainees between 2009 and 2024 — more than double the longer-term pace — and Physicians for Human Rights counted 52 deaths in the first 500 days of the current administration. ICE's own detainee-death reporting, reviewed this week by The Digital Free Press, lists at least 38 custody deaths in fiscal 2026, against 24 listed for fiscal 2025 on the same page.
ICE had not immediately responded to a request for comment on the UCLA analysis, MyNewsLA reported. In its individual detainee-death releases, ICE states that it is “committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments,” that people in custody receive medical, dental and mental health intake screenings within 12 hours of arrival, a full health assessment within 14 days, and access to 24-hour emergency care, and that no detained person is denied emergency care.
With immigration arrests running at record levels — including in California's Central Valley, Washington state and other Punjabi-diaspora hubs — more families in our readership have a relative, employee or neighbour who has passed through ICE detention. UCLA's point is statistical but the stakes are personal: the chance that a detention stay ends in a death has, on their measure, doubled. Families can check whether a person is in ICE custody through ICE's Online Detainee Locator System, and ICE lists a Detention Reporting and Information Line at 1-888-351-4024 for detention information.
What happens next
The dashboard is public, and the Behind Bars Data Project says it will keep tracking deaths in custody as detention expands and oversight remains fragmented. Dolovich argues that without reliable, complete data there can be no meaningful accountability for conditions inside facilities. Whether Congress, inspectors general or the courts take up the new rate finding — and whether ICE publishes a response — are the next developments to watch. Awaaz Punjab will update this story if ICE comments.