What specific detention centers and cases made up the 56 deaths in ICE custody during the Obama years?
Executive summary
A 2025 coalition report, Fatal Neglect, counted 56 deaths in ICE custody during the Obama administration based on FOIA documents and highlighted eight emblematic cases that it argues show systemic medical neglect; the report names specific facility failures including at the Elizabeth Detention Center where detainee Ramirez died after 20 days in custody [1] ACLU-DWN-NIJC.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[2]. Independent human-rights researchers note that ICE released post‑mortem reviews for only a portion of deaths in later years—18 reviews covering 18 of 31 deaths since May 2012—leaving gaps in the public accounting of where and how many detainee deaths occurred [3].
1. The count: 56 deaths according to a FOIA‑based coalition report
An ACLU–Detention Watch Network–National Immigrant Justice Center report, Fatal Neglect, examined FOIA materials and concluded that 56 people died while in ICE custody during the Obama years, a figure the report uses as its baseline for documenting facility‑level failures and medical lapses [1] [2]. The same coalition singled out eight detailed death cases as illustrative of systemic problems with medical care and ICE inspections [1].
2. Specific cases publicized by the report — example: Ramirez and Elizabeth Detention Center
Fatal Neglect documents individual deaths; one named example is a 56‑year‑old Ecuadorian detainee, Ramirez, who died on September 26, 2011 after 20 days at the CCA‑run Elizabeth Detention Center and subsequent care at Trinitas Hospital, with the report linking the death to inadequate monitoring of blood pressure and chronic disease management [2]. The report ties such individual case reviews to broader claims that ICE inspections often failed to identify or correct substandard medical care before or after deaths [2] [1].
3. What is publicly reviewed: ICE death reviews and the gap in transparency
Human Rights Watch analyzed ICE’s own released death reviews and found the agency had published reviews for 18 deaths that occurred since May 2012—covering 18 of 31 deaths in that window—while the remaining reviews were not publicly released, limiting external verification and facility‑level attribution across the full Obama period [3]. That partial release means public researchers must rely on FOIA compilations and advocacy reporting to assemble a more complete list of facilities and cases [3] [2].
4. Facilities repeatedly cited across reporting, and caveats
Advocacy and investigative accounts point to recurring problem sites historically associated with multiple deaths—facilities such as Eloy, Krome, and Stewart have been identified in broader reviews of detainee deaths spanning decades as among those with the most fatalities—but those sources cover long timeframes and do not map every death in the 2009–2017 window one‑to‑one without further document linking [4]. Fatal Neglect and related reporting single out CCA’s Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey for specific failures in at least one documented death [2].
5. Competing figures and interpretive disputes
Different sources and timelines produce different totals—some outlets and databases list other counts (FactCheck noted an ICE dataset that referenced 67 deaths during the Obama years, and reporting has varied on which deaths are attributed to ICE, CBP, or other agencies), which highlights the definitional and transparency challenges in attributing deaths to ICE custody and compiling a definitive facility‑level roster for 2009–2017 [5]. Advocacy groups stress systemic negligence as the causal thread; ICE and government reports have offered more limited public reviews, prompting criticism about incomplete investigations [1] [3].
6. Conclusion: a partial public accounting driven by FOIA and advocacy work
The best publicly available accounting that centers the Obama years comes from Fatal Neglect’s FOIA‑based tally (56 deaths) and its eight detailed case studies (including Ramirez at Elizabeth Detention Center), while government releases and human‑rights analyses provide partial corroboration through a subset of death reviews; however, the full list of all 56 deaths mapped to specific facilities and case files is not fully disclosed in the public materials cited, requiring further FOIA release or ICE publication to produce a definitive facility‑by‑facility roster [1] [2] [3].