Lives cut short in ICE custody: Seven migrants die in Trump’s first 100 days

Marie Blaise was 44 years old. On April 25, the Haitian woman complained of chest pains, another woman detained at the same migrant center in Deerfield Beach, Florida, told the Miami Herald. Authorities at the Broward Transitional Center took her blood pressure and discovered she had hypertension. They gave her some pills and told her to rest. Hours later, she began shaking and screaming, “My chest! My chest!” At 8:35 p.m. that night, she was pronounced dead. Her life ended in an immigration detention center, just like the lives of six other people who have died in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities in the first three months of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Since the Republican began his second term in January, seven migrants have died while in the custody of immigration police or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Blaise and two other migrants died in Florida, while one died in Arizona, another in Missouri, one in Texas, and one more in Puerto Rico. The individuals ranged in age from 27 to 55, and came from different corners of the globe: Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Ukraine, and Ethiopia. They embarked on the odyssey to the United States for various reasons and through various means, but ultimately ended up in the same place: imprisoned in an infamous network of migrant detention centers denounced for their mistreatment and conditions.

The cause of Blaise’s death is still under investigation. ICE has 90 days from each death to investigate it and make all related reports public, as required by Congress since 2018. These reports include the deceased’s demographic data, their immigration and criminal history in the United States, and a “synopsis of the events” leading up to the death. It’s a cold, technical snapshot that reduces a person, a life, to their last months or years as an immigrant.

In Blaise’s case, it is known that she was detained on February 12 at the Saint Croix International Airport in the U.S. Virgin Islands when she tried to board a flight to North Carolina without a valid immigrant visa. Immigration authorities do not know when, where, or how the woman entered the United States without authorization, but on that same day, she was issued an expedited removal notice. She came into ICE custody on February 14 and was transferred from center to center — as is common — until she ended up at the Broward center in early April. She was there for 20 days until her death.

“Preventable deaths”

In the midst of Trump’s campaign of mass arrests and deportations, Democratic lawmakers are sounding the alarm over deaths like Blaise’s. “This administration’s deportation process has been sloppy and reckless since day one. No due process and no transparency, just families being illegally ripped apart and left to fend for themselves. In severe instances, innocent people have actually died, like Marie Blaise,” Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat and the only Haitian-American in Congress, said in a House address Wednesday.

Cherfilus-McCormick suggested that Blaise had not received adequate medical care before her death and condemned the conditions in which detainees are held. “Marie had been complaining of chest pain for hours. They gave her some pills and told her to go lie down. Unfortunately, Marie never woke up,” she said. “These conditions at ICE facilities are inhumane and unsanitary. Immigrants are being treated without basic dignity and being denied medical care.” Cherfilus-McCormick concluded by calling for a “full, transparent investigation” into Blaise’s death and announced that she would visit the facility where she died.

For its part, ICE maintained in a statement that it “remains committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments.” It added: “Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay. All people in ICE custody receive medical, dental and mental health screening and 24-hour emergency care at each detention facility. At no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergent care.”

ICE has long been accused of mistreating migrants. Migrants, lawyers, organizations, and experts have repeatedly accused the agency of being responsible for dozens of deaths in its custody, regardless of the party in the White House.

Last year, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) investigation found that between 2017 and 2021, during the first Trump administration and part of the Biden administration, 95% of deaths at ICE-operated facilities could have been prevented “if appropriate medical care had been provided.”

“Systemic failures in medical and mental health care have caused preventable deaths in ICE detention,” the report stated. The investigation found that in 88% of the deaths reviewed, “ICE detention medical staff made incorrect, inappropriate, or incomplete diagnoses.” According to the report, “medical staff provided incomplete, inappropriate, or delayed treatment or medication that caused or contributed to death”

Migrant advocates warn that conditions inside these prisons have significantly worsened since Trump’s return to power. His administration has overwhelmed the detention centers, pushing them 17% over capacity, as it seeks to detain as many migrants as possible to meet Trump’s target of one million deportations a year.

Healthy on arrival, dead two weeks later

Of the seven migrant deaths in ICE custody that have occurred since Trump’s inauguration, the federal agency has only made the reports for three public so far. EL PAÍS analyzed these three cases and found that, in all instances, the migrants were evaluated by a medical professional upon their arrival at their respective detention centers. None of the three men showed any abnormalities or medical issues at the time of their arrival, and were therefore allowed to remain in detention. However, their health deteriorated rapidly.

Maksym Chernyak was one of the victims: the 44-year-old Ukrainian died in ICE custody on February 20. He had arrived at a Miami detention center earlier that month with no medical problems, except for slightly elevated blood pressure.

On February 8, he developed a cough with nasal congestion, for which he was evaluated and treated the following day. His symptoms persisted, and on February 15, he returned to the facility’s clinic. He was treated and once again returned to his cell. Three days later, he had a medical crisis: at 2:32 a.m. on February 18, he was found vomiting and trembling. “Chernyak appeared intoxicated, diaphoretic, uncoordinated, and intermittently unresponsive,” according to the ICE report.

The center’s doctor requested that he be sent to a hospital, but while awaiting his transfer, he suffered six seizures. The first occurred less than 30 minutes later, at 3:00 a.m. The rest followed every three to five minutes, as he vomited blood. Once at a local hospital, doctors discovered at 9:00 a.m. that he might have had a hemorrhagic stroke. By 3:00 p.m., he was placed under a brain death protocol. He was declared dead two days later.

Chernyak had entered the United States legally in August 2024 under the humanitarian parole program launched in 2022 by former president Joe Biden for people fleeing the war in Ukraine. However, in January of this year, he was arrested for an assault charge and subsequently placed in ICE custody.

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