How did COVID‑19 affect the number and causes of deaths in ICE custody in 2020 and 2021?
Executive summary
COVID-19 coincided with a sharp, measurable rise in deaths in ICE custody in 2020 and continued to shape causes of death into 2021: fiscal year 2020 saw the highest toll in over a decade and roughly eight deaths were officially attributed to COVID-19, making the virus a leading listed medical cause among detainee fatalities; critics and academic researchers tie that surge to outbreaks, limited testing and substandard medical care while ICE points to procedural changes and reporting rules in 2021 [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. COVID as a leading immediate cause: official totals and academic counts
Multiple contemporaneous counts put COVID-19 squarely among the top medical causes of death in ICE custody in 2020: ICE-reported tallies and media tallies identified roughly 19–21 in-custody deaths during FY2020, with eight deaths officially linked to COVID-19 [1] [2], and a USC research team later confirmed that eight medical deaths were attributed to COVID-19, representing the majority of medical deaths occurring since April 2020 [3] [5].
2. The scale: record highs and a shrinking population
Observers noted a paradox: deaths rose even as average daily detained population fell, producing what researchers called a seven-fold increase in deaths relative to prior years; USC’s review of congressionally mandated reports documented a spike in total deaths since April 2018 and emphasized that the FY2020 toll was the deadliest since 2005–2006 [3] [1].
3. How COVID changed the mix of causes
Before the pandemic, suicides and diverse medical causes predominated; with COVID-19, a substantial share of medical deaths in 2020–2021 were infection-related — eight COVID-attributed medical deaths accounted for roughly 72.7% of 11 medical deaths in the USC analysis since April 2020 — and public-health threats like influenza and suicide remained concerns cited by researchers as potentially preventable drivers of mortality [3] [5].
4. Outbreaks, testing gaps and alleged institutional failures
Reporting from advocacy groups, news outlets and internal communications pointed to outbreaks in detention centers, limited testing and quarantine challenges that likely exacerbated transmission: journalists and legal advocates documented facilities with widespread COVID cases and whistleblower emails showing resistance to testing when quarantine capacity was limited, a pattern critics say contributed to avoidable deaths [6] [7] [8].
5. Accountability, reporting practices and potential undercounts
Analysts note methodological limits in official counts: ICE’s public reporting excludes people who contracted COVID-19 in custody but died after release, and ICE’s own 2021 detainee-death reporting policy reorganized how deaths are notified and reviewed, complicating comparisons across years; critics argue that both reporting rules and limited transparency may understate the pandemic’s full mortality footprint tied to detention [2] [4].
6. Competing narratives: prevention versus inevitability
Advocates and watchdogs framed the deaths as preventable consequences of detention policy and substandard care, calling for mass releases and stronger public-health interventions [8] [9], while ICE and some commentators emphasized that detainees often enter custody with preexisting conditions and asserted that in-custody deaths remain rarer than in other custody systems, pointing to procedural reviews and new reporting rules in 2021 as steps to address mortality [2] [4].
7. What changed in 2021 and outstanding questions
ICE issued a formal Notification, Review, and Reporting Requirements policy in 2021 intended to standardize how detainee deaths are reported and reviewed, which could alter both timeliness and content of public disclosures going forward; however, academic studies and advocates caution that policy changes alone do not resolve documented gaps in testing, quarantine capacity and medical care that experts flagged during the pandemic’s early waves [4] [3].
Conclusion: COVID amplified risk and shifted the death profile
In short, COVID-19 materially increased the number of medical deaths in ICE custody in 2020 and remained a central cause into 2021, with official and scholarly counts converging on roughly eight COVID-attributed deaths in the pandemic period amid an overall spike in fatalities; the interpretation of those numbers depends on disputed questions about testing, facility practices, reporting definitions and whether institutional reforms enacted in 2021 sufficiently addressed the pandemic-era failures critics identified [1] [2] [3] [4].