ICE Stops Reporting Deaths of Detainees Who Die Within 30 Days of Release

Immigration and Customs Enforcement rescinded a 2021 policy that had required the agency to report to Congress, and to investigate, deaths of detainees occurring within 30 days of release, NBC News reported on June 5, 2026. The 2021 rule was adopted to keep the agency from avoiding accountability by releasing severely ill detainees shortly before they died. ICE will no longer track or review those deaths. DHS called the change 'common sense,' saying that 'when an individual is no longer in ICE custody then ICE will no longer be responsible for monitoring or reviewing deaths.' At least 18 people had died in ICE detention since January 1, 2026, a pace exceeding 2025, itself the deadliest year in two decades.

Death-reporting requirements are among the few external checks on conditions in a detention system largely closed to outside inspection. Removing post-release deaths from the count narrows the data Congress and the public can use to assess medical care as the detained population expands.

Dr. Homer Venters, a former chief medical officer of New York City's jails, called it 'a willful act of ignoring the most serious health outcome.'