Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted 33 mortality reviews online on September 25, then removed them by September 30. Pages that once contained the documents instead displayed a notice that they were not found, and ICE public relations did not answer an email asking why they disappeared.

The records offer a disturbing account of immigrants whose health rapidly deteriorated in federal detention while they endured treatable conditions, ignored requests and delayed emergency care. Nearly all of the reviews, which covered deaths since 2019, identified significant failures.

Carlos Josué Marchena Marchena was 36 when he died earlier this month at Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana. He repeatedly told his family and another detainee that he was not receiving the insulin needed to manage his Type 1 diabetes, was missing meals and lacked enough water.

Another immigrant reportedly said Marchena was vomiting, in pain and “pale purple and wet with sweat.” Marchena was the third person to die at Winn this year and among at least 65 people who have died in immigration detention since Donald Trump retook the White House, according to the Prospect’s nonscientific tally.

ICE said in boilerplate language that Marchena “received proper medical care and was seen by medical professionals.” The agency also claimed it provides comprehensive medical, dental and mental health care from the moment people arrive, adding, “At no time during detention is a detained noncitizen denied emergency care.”

The mortality reviews tell a far uglier story. They describe staff withholding routine medication, confiscating medicine without administering it, neglecting subsequent care, misreading diagnostic tests, giving incorrect medication and failing to send people in crisis to emergency rooms promptly.

Staff also ignored requests for medical attention, failed to communicate about detainees’ conditions and sometimes could not properly administer CPR. Even four reviews that found care remained within safe limits of practice documented serious breakdowns.

When 42 year old Nicaraguan man Ernesto Rocha Cuadra died at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in 2023, responding staff “had a limited sense of urgency,” although he was suffering a heart attack. The review also said he had accessed and used illicit drugs inside the facility.

“No matter how many times we hear this same horrendous information, it doesn’t get better and it keeps getting worse,” said Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network. She said standards bring no accountability when violations carry no consequences.

Seven reviews listed suicide as the cause of death. They included the death of 32 year old Chinese national Chaofeng Ge, whom reviewers said hanged himself on August 5, 2025, at Pennsylvania’s Moshannon Valley Processing Center, though the report said he was found “bound at the hands and feet.”

That review also found multiple failures by medical personnel, including an inability to administer CPR properly. Other records showed repeated failures to provide mental health treatment, including in the case of 55 year old Cuban man Geraldo Lunas Campos at Camp East Montana.

Lunas Campos had previously attempted suicide through a medication overdose that required 15 days in a hospital. After entering Camp East Montana in July 2025, staff adjusted a medication regimen that had included a psychotropic drug he had taken for a decade.

He later struck his head against a wall, attempted to hang himself and repeatedly sought greater help while reporting missed medication doses, anxiety and depression. The care provided was “counseling with coping techniques.”

On January 3, 2026, Lunas Campos wrapped a sweatshirt around his neck in another suicide attempt. Custody officers entered his cell but “proceeded with spontaneous use of force,” and medical workers arriving less than ten minutes later found him unresponsive and without a pulse.

The reviews also detail the death of 39 year old Mexican national Ismael Ayala Uribe, who reported an anal abscess and pain rated 10 out of 10 on September 17, 2025, at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Los Angeles. Staff offered pain medication, a laxative, hemorrhoidal ointment and a temporary pain relief injection.

After staff failed to conduct wellness checks or provide proper subsequent care, Ayala Uribe was taken to a hospital four days later. By then, he had suffered kidney failure and developed sepsis, followed by respiratory arrest and a heart attack before his death on September 22.

Ghandehari said detention reflects a philosophy of criminalization and deterrence, as well as a multibillion dollar grift benefiting private prison corporations and service contractors. “Nobody should be in ICE detention at all to begin with,” she said. “It makes healthy people unhealthy.”