The head of the UN human rights organization wants to investigate the death of immigrants in the US United Nations News

Deaths of immigrants in US prisons have increased during the second term of Donald Trump.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has called for an independent investigation into the mass deaths. refugee camps during the second term of President Donald Trump.

In a statement on Friday, Turk expressed concern about the lack of transparency in this regard deathat least 19 have occurred so far this year, according to US government statistics.

“Those responsible for violations must be held accountable, and the rights of the families of the victims to truth, justice and retribution and guarantees of non-repetition must be upheld,” the UN said. director of human rights he said.

Deaths in immigration detention centers have spiked during Trump’s second term in office, stemming from what rights groups and immigration lawyers have characterized as systematic neglect. brutality it’s cruel.

The Trump administration wants to rapidly expand immigration detention centers, run by private contractors, as it seeks to deport more immigrants to the US.

Trump said in a press release Friday that his administration has the “Highest Average Daily Arrest Rate by ICE and CBP, including Total Detention, with Final Orders of Removal, than any other president, by far!”

The death of a Georgian man, Mamuka Artmeladze, in a prison in Louisiana on June 4 increased the number of deaths this year to 19, compared to 33 last year and 11 in 2024.

“The rate of deaths in ICE custody is the highest in more than a decade and has more than doubled since Trump’s second term,” Human Rights Watch wrote in a report on deaths in custody earlier this month. “This rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration and two and a half times that of the Trump administration.”

The report said the 52 people who died in prison during Trump’s second term were between the ages of 19 and 75 and came from 20 different races.

Turk wrote on Friday that there has been “a lot about the use of force” in the country materials and that five of the people who died in 2026 were identified as suicides.

He also said he was concerned about the use of the report imprisonmentwhich is associated with an increased risk of suicide and is considered a form of torture by the UN after 15 days.

“All of these factors increase the risk and raise serious concerns about whether some of the deaths in ICE custody could have been prevented,” he said.