Washington, DC — Today Detention Watch Network and Popular Democracy held a press conference to honor people who have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immigration detention. The press conference featured Congresswoman Emily Randall (WA-06), directly impacted people and national immigrant justice leaders who denounced the Trump administration’s mass detention and deportation agenda. Shockingly, there have been at least 25 deaths in ICE custody in just ten months, a record number of deaths within a calendar year since Detention Watch Network began tracking in 2006.
Today’s press conference also featured a mariachi band, altar by Dia de Los Muertos DC, and striking visuals. Speakers highlighted the cruelty of Trump’s immigration policies, including mass detention expansion and medical neglect inside facilities, stripping due process protections, and attacks on birthright citizenship. They also called out how Trump’s cruel agenda is moving full steam ahead at the expense of lifesaving healthcare for Americans – a key cause of the government shutdown, which ICE is now using to further evade transparency and accountability. Advocates cited the MAGA megabill from June and its devastating impact, as the bill provides $150 billion for immigration enforcement – the targeting, detention, and deportation of people – including $45 billion for ICE to detain families and adults at the expense of vital programs for all Americans.
“Deadly Failures,” a 2024 report by the ACLU, American Oversight, Physicians for Human Rights, and independent medical experts found that 95 percent of deaths in detention were deemed preventable or possibly preventable if ICE had provided clinically appropriate medical care. “Deadly Failures,” adds to additional investigations into deaths in immigration detention including, Code Red: The Fatal Consequences of Dangerously Substandard Medical Care in Immigration Detention, Fatal Neglect: How ICE Ignores Deaths in Detention, and Systemic Indifference: Dangerous and Substandard Medical Care in US Immigration Detention. These reports have found that ICE’s medical care has contributed to numerous deaths and that the agency lacks urgency and transparency when reporting deaths in its custody.
Today’s action is a kick off to the Disappeared in America Weekend of Action that brings together a broad national coalition – including the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), Detention Watch Network, The Workers Circle, Public Citizen, Women’s March, Strategic Organizing Initiative, and many others – for a weekend of coordinated protests, vigils, and cultural actions. Together, we are demanding due process, freedom, and justice for all.
Speaker statements:
Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director at Detention Watch Network, said: “Immigration detention is deadly – 2025 is the deadliest year in ICE custody in decades. In immigration detention, deprivation of freedom, isolation, uncertainty, and abysmal conditions, including inadequate medical care and mental health services, inedible food, and racist abuse are a lethal combination that puts lives in jeopardy. The Trump administration’s massive detention expansion is exacerbating the inhumane conditions inherent to ICE’s detention system. Trump’s explosive growth of immigration detention comes at the expense of all Americans as people lose health care, struggle to pay rent, kids go hungry, and families worry over emergency preparedness and response amidst climate disasters. Our message is clear: Immigrant lives are of value, and immigrants deserve safety, dignity and respect. We mourn the loss of life in ICE custody, valued loved ones, while demanding elected leaders at all levels reject Trump’s mass detention and deportation agenda.”
Isaias Guerrero, Director of Fight Back with Popular Democracy in Action said: “Being an immigrant is part of the identity of the United States. Within immigrant communities, there’s pain, tenacity and a foundation of loving this country as much as where we were born. This love is part of what sustains the fabric of this society together. The Trump administration is tearing the flag from which we have sought refuge and is using ICE, the 5th largest army in the world, to terrorize everyone by patrolling our schools, hospitals, and places of worship, and kidnapping our loved ones to place them in inhumane cages of death and desperation. We will not let this administration destroy the mantle of justice and will continue mobilizing the majority of Americans that say enough is enough to this abuse. We commemorate those that have passed in detention and that are disappeared from our communities to ensure that this treatment stops and celebrate them so that their memory is part of our collective vision towards freedom and liberation for all.”
Yanira, CASA member, said: “I am a mother and part of the community that is being violated by the attacks of this administration. They are harassing, surveilling, and, why not say it, detaining and disappearing mothers, fathers, children, brothers, and sisters who are being disappeared by this system. I am here raising my voice in solidarity, demanding justice, confronting the system of oppression and inequality for all Black, Latino, and working-class immigrant communities. We demand access and transparency and the immediate release of all those kidnapped, detained, and disappeared, affirming their dignity and their right to freedom and due process.”
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Popular Democracy is a network of 47 grassroots organizations across 32 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico that unapologetically demand transformational change for Black, brown, and low-income communities. We upend politics as usual to forge a representative, multiracial government and society where we all thrive — no exceptions.
Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.