A Cup of Rice and a Glass of Water”: ICE Detention Was Deadlier in 2025 Than at the Height of COVID
On September 29, 2025, Huabing Xie, a Chinese citizen, died in ICE custody after an apparent seizure. He was the 23rd person to die in ICE detention that fiscal year, which made 2025 the deadliest year for detainees since 2004, and the article calls these deaths “a shockingly common occurrence.” The toll was worse than in 2020, when COVID-19 was spreading unchecked through detention facilities.
The causes are clear and preventable. In less than a year, the Trump administration increased the number of people held by ICE by almost 50%, to close to 60,000, and most facilities are now over their contracted capacity. In Massachusetts, “35 to 40 men” were packed into a windowless room with one toilet and slept “head-by-toe” on concrete. At Krome in Florida, detainees reported getting only “a cup of rice and a glass of water a day.”
Medical neglect makes it deadlier. One man with a “serious eye infection for almost two weeks” and a “fever” was denied medication. A previously healthy 23-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker was moved between facilities so often, and his prescriptions withheld so routinely, that he eventually had to be “taken to medical in a wheelchair, assisted by fellow detainees.”
The mental health toll is just as grim. Three of the deaths were apparent suicides, including 27-year-old Brayan Rayo-Garzon, whose mental health appointment was rescheduled twice during his two-week detention. Two detainees were also killed when a gunman opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas.
Worst of all, ICE faces almost no accountability. Even after a federal judge ordered improvements at a Manhattan holding facility, “poor conditions persist.” Only 17 of the 23 deaths appeared on ICE’s official death-reporting page, the agency reportedly releases critically ill detainees before they die to avoid reporting requirements, and the administration cut the oversight offices meant to monitor detention. The article’s conclusion is that this “lack of transparency and its obfuscation” lets ICE escape responsibility for the inhumane treatment of people in its custody.
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