A Cuban man is the 18th person to die in US ICE custody this year: Monitor | Donald Trump News

The rights group says it believes the suicide proves the need for more oversight in Trump’s mass deportations.

A 33-year-old Cuban man has died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), believed to be a suicide, the agency said.

The watchdog group said Friday that Denny Adan Gonzalez was the 18th person to die in US immigration custody this year under US President Donald Trump’s massive deportation order. It is also the fifth death believed to be a suicide, according to Physicians for Human Rights, which warned of “an increase in suicides”.

In a statement, ICE said Gonzalez was arrested on December 12, 2025, in Charlotte, North Carolina for “female battery and domestic violence”.

He was transferred to ICE’s Stewart Detention Center in Georgia in January. He added that he was deported to the US but re-entered without documents in 2022.

On Tuesday, Gonzalez was found unresponsive in his room and pronounced dead at a local hospital, according to ICE. He was found by employees of CoreCivic, a prison company that works with ICE.

Analysts say 2026 is at risk of having the most deaths in ICE custody in the agency’s 22-year history. Last year already saw a record number of deaths in custody, with 33 confirmed.

The rise comes in the midst of expansion imprisonment under Trump, which reached more than 70,000 people in prison in January of this year. That’s up from less than 40,000 people arrested when Trump took office in January 2025, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) tracker.

Responding to Gonzalez’s death, Physicians for Human Rights said it “reveals a growing trend of suicide in a system where solitary confinement remains prevalent, despite well-documented evidence of serious psychological harm”.

Andrew Free, a lawyer who advocates for people in prison, said Gonzalez was held in solitary confinement. ICE did not say in a statement whether Gonzalez was in solitary confinement when he was found dead. Al Jazeera has reached out to the agency for comment.

In a statement, Katherine Peeler, a doctor and professor at Harvard Medical School, said she was “not surprised by this death – and that’s what makes it so painful”.

“A person in immigration detention is placed in isolation, already separated from family, community, legal aid, at risk. ICE has received this evidence over and over again, through our reports, through congressional testimony, through investigations of their oversight agencies.”

Peeler, who advises Physicians for Human Rights, has previously written an academic article that documented the administration’s payback amid Trump’s arrest.

For its part, ICE said in a statement that it is “committed to ensuring that all detainees are housed in a safe, secure and humane environment”.

“All persons in ICE custody receive medical, dental, and mental health care within 12 hours of arrival at any detention facility; a comprehensive health evaluation within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival; access to medical care; and 24-hour emergency care,” it said.

“There is no time in custody when an arrested person refuses emergency treatment,” it added.