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ICE Detention Is Even Deadlier Under Trump 2.0
At least 25 people have died in ICE custody since President Donald Trump returned to office, making 2025 the deadliest year for people in ICE custody since 2004.
Dec 13, 2025
Gabriel Garcia-Aviles was a 56-year-old grandfather with a work permit who’d been living in the US for over 30 years. He was a beloved member of his Southern California community.
This fall, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Garcia-Aviles and sent him to the Adelanto immigration detention center. He died around a week later, with ICE only informing his family that he was in critical condition once he was on his deathbed.
At the hospital, his daughter Mariel found him “unconscious, intubated,” and with “dried blood on his forehead.” He had “a cut on his tongue and blood on his lips” and “broken teeth and bruising on his body,” according to reporting from LA Taco. No clear cause of death was given, leaving his family shattered and still searching for answers.
That’s the second death this year at Adelanto.
Ultimately Congress must defund and dismantle ICE, end the unnecessary and inhumane system of immigration detention, and create more legal pathways to citizenship, among other reforms.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, a 39-year-old former DACA recipient from Orange County, lived in the US for nearly 35 years. ICE apprehended him while he was working at a car wash and sent him to Adelanto on August 22. He died a month later of an abscess after reportedly being denied lifesaving medical treatment.
ICE didn’t inform his family that he’d been hospitalized. They only learned of Ayala-Uribe’s death the following day after a police visit.
At least 25 people have died in ICE custody since President Donald Trump returned to office, making 2025 the deadliest year for people in ICE custody since 2004. Over 65,000 others remain detained, also the highest number in years. Immigrants with no criminal record remain the largest group in immigration detention. According to ProPublica, ICE has also detained over 170 US citizens this year.
Adelanto, owned and operated by the GEO Group, is among ICE’s sprawling network of mostly private, for-profit detention facilities notorious for human rights abuses. But it’s hardly alone.
From the Krome Detention Center in Florida to the Karnes County detention facility in Texas, people in ICE custody are routinely subjected to abysmal conditions and medical neglect. The detention population has increased by 50% this year, which experts have warned could lead to more deaths.
Rights groups have been issuing warnings like these for years.
In 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union and Physicians for Human Rights examined the deaths of 52 people who died in ICE custody between 2017 to 2021 and concluded that 95% of those deaths would have been “preventable or possibly preventable” with appropriate medical care. The researchers also found ICE’s oversight and accountability mechanisms “critically flawed.”
These problems have only worsened as immigration arrests have escalated as part of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda. Recent US Senate investigations uncovered dozens of cases of medical neglect, insufficient or rotten food, foul water, and pregnant women forced to sleep on the floor in ICE detention facilities this year.
Watchdog groups and lawmakers have found that ICE has repeatedly failed to comply with its own protocols, ignored congressional inquiries, and denied members of Congress entry to facilities, even though they have the authority to conduct unannounced oversight visits.
ICE acts increasingly like a rogue agency, refusing to follow US and international law. Yet the “Big Beautiful Bill” Trump signed this year includes $45 billion for ICE to build new prisons housing adults and children, which all but ensures more abuses and preventable deaths. Meanwhile, private prison companies continue to profit.
It doesn’t have to be this way. More oversight would help safeguard civil and human rights. But ultimately Congress must defund and dismantle ICE, end the unnecessary and inhumane system of immigration detention, and create more legal pathways to citizenship, among other reforms.
Legislation recently introduced by US Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.) would be a step forward. If passed, it would repeal mandatory detention and phase out privatized detention.
As more families are ripped apart, our nation of immigrants stands at a crossroads. It can continue on this path of extreme cruelty and systemic abuse, or it can uphold human rights and dignity for all people.
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For Social Security’s 90th Birthday, Don’t Celebrate–Organize!
Instead of having a piece of birthday cake, make a call to your member of Congress, post on social media about how we need to protect Social Security, and talk to your friends about the need to speak up against threats to your benefits.
Aug 14, 2025
This August 14 marks the 90th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law. This was a huge step forward for America, and our country has been profoundly changed for the better. We quite understandably focus on Social Security’s retirement benefits, but Social Security is much more than this. It is a social insurance policy that helps children whose parents have died and those who are disabled and provides spousal income.
It is very easy to be tempted into celebrating Social Security’s longevity and enjoying a piece of birthday cake. Given the threats to Social Security, as well as other programs like Medicaid, such celebrations are misleading. The best way to mark Social Security’s 90th birthday is to adapt a phrase made famous by the legendary labor organizer Joe Hill: “Don’t celebrate—organize!”
Given the threats to Social Security by the Trump administration in just seven months in office, celebrations are not helpful. Let’s briefly review some of the recent Trump actions that impact your benefits:
- Weakening confidence in Social Security by alleging widespread fraud. Back in April, Elon Musk, then the self-styled first buddy and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was leveling charges of massive fraud in Social Security. As The New York Times reported, “Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has continued his campaign to aggressively undercut Social Security, leveling baseless and often misleading attacks on the insurance program.”
- President Donald Trump has said consistently since 2016 that he would not touch Social Security. I have no doubt that some will dismiss all that we are saying by pointing to Trump’s repeated promises to protect. Rather than focusing on how much a promise from Trump is worth, I would point to the fact that Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury secretary who was discussing the Trump Accounts created by the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) described them as, “a backdoor for privatizing Social Security. Social Security is a defined benefit plan paid out. To the extent that if, all of a sudden, these accounts grow and you have in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for your retirement, then that’s a game changer, too.”
- In March, Axios reported that “Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested this week that only ‘fraudsters’ would complain about missing a monthly Social Security check, and that most people wouldn’t mind if the government simply skipped a payment.”
- All sides agree that Social Security faces some very significant long-term funding challenges. Rather than helping to solve Social Security’s challenges or even have no impact on them, the OBBB weakens Social Security’s finances. As The Hill recently reported: “President Trump’s tax and spending megabill could speed up insolvency for Social Security’s trust funds, according to an analysis from the Trump administration’s chief actuary for the program. The Office of the Chief Actuary (OACT) at the Social Security Administration (SSA) released an analysis this week of the law’s potential effects on the program’s finances in response to a request from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.”
- Last, but certainly not least, the Trump administration has made large cuts to Social Security staffing that impact its ability to help Americans access their earned benefits. As the Center for Budget and Policy pointed out in June: “Over the past five months, the Trump administration has forced the Social Security Administration (SSA) through a radical transformation that threatens to disrupt services for the largely older and severely disabled people who most rely on the agency. The Trump Administration and its so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have created huge gaps in customer service and support by indiscriminately pushing out 7,000 workers to hit an arbitrary staffing reduction target. This is the largest staffing cut in SSA’s history.”
Given all of this, if you really care about Social Security, it is impossible to blithely celebrate its birthday.
So instead of having a piece of birthday cake, make a call to your member of Congress, post on social media about how we need to protect Social Security, and talk to your friends about the need to speak up against threats to your benefits. In other words, don’t celebrate–organize!
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Hello, Fascism
It’s here. What should Democrats be doing now?
Aug 13, 2025
It’s here. Stop all the useless debate. Whether it’s a consolidating dictatorship, as Rachel Maddow says, or an illiberal democracy, or an electoral autocracy…
If masked and plainclothes secret police arresting undocumented immigrants, students, and citizens alike, including members of Congress, aren’t a clear enough indication, then the military takeover of Washington DC, citing lies about the crime rate, is.
America has become a fascist state. How fascist is irrelevant; the question serves only as an excuse, a way to tag out and wait for things to blow over. It’s not that bad.
So it’s here. It’s here thanks to President Donald Trump. What did we expect? It’s here thanks to his enablers, most prominent among them, Republican members of Congress. It’s here thanks to Republican voters and nonvoters alike, whose apathy in the last election should not be forgiven.
If anything, with approval ratings rock bottom, Democrats would be showing that they aren’t as feeble as they currently are and have been.
It’s here thanks to the ignorant and indifferent, the dumb and deluded, the hateful, scornful, spiteful, shortsighted, racist, militaristic, misogynistic, misguided…
Democrats—failed candidates and sitting representatives—are at fault too. For never putting up an effective fight despite all the warnings they gave us, despite all the warnings we gave them, pleading for proper change; who, even out of power, continue to resist with little ambition or desperation, strongly-worded letters a testament to what they are or have become: slaves to donors, the corporate class, and their own irrelevancy. Hello, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
This needs to change. It’s starting to, maybe. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has offered a bit more fight, but he feels so very performative, both eyes on the presidency. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker feels a bit more honest—maybe it’s the belly—but as a billionaire, he’s also part of the problem.
A few others seem genuinely genuine, and are channeling, for once, the frustration of those they represent—or hope to—which happens also to be their own, rather than chiding us or assuring us that all is well. Hello, Zohran Mamdani.
So there’s some hope, however slim. The midterms loom. Republicans are scared. Trump aside, whose handling of the Epstein scandal has isolated even the most MAGA, his policies are unpopular. They will only grow more unpopular as their effects kick in; they can’t all be delayed until after the midterms. The reality of them will only grow more stark as ordinary people begin to suffer and Republicans and Fox News struggle to skew the story, losing track of their own lies. But only if Democrats make a concerted effort to connect the dots.
Avoid Town Halls, Republicans have been advised. It’s easy to see why. The few representatives to hold them regardless have been heckled and booed, called out for what they are: liars. Shameful. They’ve been called worse.
They’re scared. Which is why the party is trying to gerrymander their way out of a potential midterm defeat, to secure the one-party system they crave, a facade of democracy that will allow them, like other autocracies, to persist.
It’s here where Democrats and even Independents—elected representatives and prospective ones, organizers, activists, celebrities, podcast hosts—should be filling the void. Be for once bold. Brave. Enough with echo chambers. Strike deep into the heart of Trump country. Spark debate and controversy; garner headlines by simply being there, everywhere there’s a microphone and a too-large, red hat, at least some of which are definitely made in China.
Book Town Halls and adjacent venues; stage protests and counterprotests; tour as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) did, albeit under a less pretentious title… Fighting Oligarchy is like a harder-to-say synonym of Save Democracy, and we know how well that went… and explain, in the simplest terms, what we know is concerning people.
With cultural issues being a tad touchy—I get it—lead with economic, as Mamdani has been doing. We know how tariffs are hurting small businesses and big ones alike, like General Motors. How farmers are hurting. How tariffs are ensuring inflation remains high. How the Big Beautiful Bill Act will cut taxes for the rich and healthcare and food programs for those struggling to get by. How Trump has no plan regarding in vitro fertilization. How the wars in Ukraine and Gaza go on…
Name every single broken promise. Follow with the Epstein scandal. Repeat Trump’s own words: “terrific guy,” “A lot of fun to be with.” Show him partying with the pedophile. Over and over again. Show how he’s just another golf-loving nepo baby, a member of the Swamp as well the cabal of pedophiles—at least a sympathizer—he was entrusted to destroy; has he not floated a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell? Moved her to Club Fed? Hint how he’s complicit, harnessing the conspiracy theories his supporters have themselves created. Challenge them to find, if they can and want to, the most twisted justifications.
There’s just so much to go on outside the more nuanced ways in which the current administration is unraveling not just democracy—which we don’t even need to mention—but what truly makes America great: economic opportunity, stability… Betrayal cuts deep.
Let the wounds fester, and we might find that something resonates, ripples outwards, flowers, flourishes, that seed of doubt; even if the most dug in refuse to admit that they were wrong, scammed, grifted… then at least the more moderate or indifferent can come around, inspiring, if not a popular revolt, than enough votes or nonvotes to turn the tide when the time comes.
If anything, with approval ratings rock bottom, Democrats would be showing that they aren’t as feeble as they currently are and have been. That, even if they believe in progressive policies more conservative voters may not agree with, like trans rights, women’s rights, due process for undocumented immigrants, or stricter gun laws, they also believe in a familiar, free, and safe, bountiful America.
So it’s here: fascism. The best we can do now is ensure it’s short lived.
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