Four migrants died while under the custody of U.S. immigration authorities in the first 10 days of 2026, according to government press releases, a loss of life that comes on the heels of a record number of deaths in detention last year under the administration of President Donald Trump.
The incidents involved two Honduran migrants, one Cuban, and another Cambodian, and occurred between January 3 and 9, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The wave of deaths in custody coincides with the fatal shooting of a mother of three from Minnesota by an ICE agent, an incident that sparked protests in Minneapolis and in cities across the country.
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The Cuban detainee, Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, died on January 3 at Camp East Montana, a detention center opened by the Trump administration on the grounds of Fort Bliss, in Texas.
The ICE said it was investigating Lunas’s death, adding that he had become disruptive, was placed in isolation and later found in distress. He was pronounced dead by emergency medical technicians, ICE said.
The two Hondurans — Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, 42, and Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, 68 — died in regional hospitals in Houston and Indio, California, on January 5 and 6, respectively, both due to cardiac problems, ICE said.
Parady La, a 46-year-old Cambodian man, died on January 9 after severe withdrawal symptoms from drugs at the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center, ICE said. The administration began using that facility last year, according to the service.
The Trump administration sharply reduced the number of migrants released from detention for humanitarian reasons, leading some to accept deportation.
