Which ICE facilities have had the highest number of deaths since 2020 and what patterns emerge in causes of death?
Executive summary
Reporting and publicly available analyses do not provide a single, authoritative, facility-by-facility ranking of deaths since 2020, but multiple sources identify clusters and repeat problem sites—most prominently Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss, Stewart Detention Center, and several large regional processing centers and contract jails—and peer-reviewed and advocacy investigations point to a shift toward medical causes (especially cardiac arrest) and continued COVID-19–related and potentially preventable deaths [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. No definitive facility “leaderboard” — the data gap itself is a story
ICE publishes individual detainee death reports and a deaths webpage, but there is no single public dataset that compiles, ranks, and reconciles deaths by facility in a way researchers can use to produce a robust, transparent leaderboard since 2020; journalists have had to verify names across sources and advocates warn deaths are undercounted because releases or jurisdictional gaps can exclude cases [5] [2] [6].
2. Facilities repeatedly flagged by reporting for clusters of deaths
Investigations by outlets and advocates repeatedly call out Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss as a site with multiple recent deaths—three in a 44‑day span was reported in January 2026—and label it one of the largest and most troubled sites in recent months [1] [7]; journalists and lawyers have also pointed to Stewart Detention Center in Georgia and other large processing centers as having multiple COVID‑related hospitalizations and deaths during 2020 [4] [2].
3. Aggregate trends: more deaths in 2025 and the pandemic peak in 2020
Calendar and fiscal reporting compiled by journalists and policy groups show spikes: 2020 saw a surge of deaths in part driven by COVID‑19 (18 reported that calendar year as noted in contemporaneous tallies) and 2025 was described by multiple outlets as the deadliest year since the mid‑2000s with dozens of reported in‑custody deaths [8] [2] [9]. Independent tallies and media verification were necessary because ICE’s public reporting and categorization do not always align with external counts [2] [10].
4. Causes of death: a move toward medical emergencies, especially cardiac arrest, with COVID and preventable care failures prominent
A systematic review of ICE death reports covering FY2021–2023 found that cardiac arrest of a primary medical cause accounted for about one in three deaths (33%), up from approximately one in seven in FY2018–2020, signaling an increase in acute medical fatalities inside facilities; COVID‑19 drove many deaths in 2020 and remains a recognized factor in transfers and outbreaks [3] [4]. Advocacy groups and forensic reviews have concluded a large share of deaths were likely preventable and tied to delayed, incomplete, or incorrect medical care—one high‑profile ACLU summary found medical staff made incorrect or incomplete diagnoses in a large majority of reviewed deaths and argued that many deaths reflected systemic care failures [11] [6].
5. Other important patterns: suicides, alleged violence, shootings, and reporting problems
Beyond medical causes, reporting documents suicides, at least one death under investigation as a likely homicide by asphyxiation, and fatal shootings connected to immigration enforcement in 2025; the mixture of causes—medical, self‑harm, alleged staff violence, and external shootings—shows the heterogeneity of fatal outcomes and complicates simple rankings [11] [10] [12]. Equally consequential are recurring allegations that investigations omit evidence, that facilities have destroyed footage or released key witnesses, and that ICE’s reporting window and post‑release exclusions can mask the true scale and facility patterns of mortality [6] [5].
6. What can be said with confidence and what remains unknown
It is clear from peer‑reviewed analysis and sustained reporting that (a) deaths rose materially during the COVID era and again in 2025; (b) cardiac arrests and acute medical events have become a larger fraction of in‑custody deaths in FY2021–2023; and (c) multiple large facilities—most visibly Camp East Montana (Fort Bliss) and Stewart—have been the focus of clustered deaths and scrutiny [3] [4] [1] [2]. What cannot be definitively stated from the available sources is a ranked, facility‑by‑facility table of “highest number of deaths since 2020” compiled from a single authoritative database; journalists and researchers must continue to reconcile ICE releases, facility reports, and independent verification to produce that level of granularity [5] [2].