On March 16th, 19-year-old Royer Perez Jimenez was found unconscious and unresponsive inside his cell at the Glades County Detention Facility in Moore Haven, Florida. DHS claims Royer received emergency medical attention after he was discovered in his cell, but could not be resuscitated and was soon after pronounced dead.
Royer is a Mayan youth hailing from San Juan Chamula, an autonomous Tzotzil Maya community in Chiapas, Mexico. He arrived in the U.S. in 2022 before being voluntarily removed, but he returned to the U.S. at an unknown date. He was detained by ICE in January 2022 and served time for misdemeanor charges before being released back into ICE custody and processed at the Glades County facility in February of this year.
Royer is the youngest person to die in ICE detention under Trump’s administration and at least the 13th person who has died in the agency’s custody between January and March of this year. This number is more than triple the number of deaths (4 in 2025 versus 12 in 2026) that occurred in ICE detention last year during the same period.
Without an official autopsy, DHS has stated that Royer likely killed himself. This is despite Royer answering no to all suicide related questions when screened shortly after arriving at the Glades County facility on February 26th. In 2022, members of Congress and immigrant rights groups signed wrote a letter to DHS asking for the closure of the Glades County facility, citing racism and the brutal treatment of Black inmates, a carbon monoxide leak at the facility due to staff negligence, sexual assault, retaliation for peaceful protesting and medical abuse against immigrants and locals detained at the facility as reasons for why the government should terminate its contract and immediately close the facility. In response, the Biden administration limited the use of the facility for immigration detention but did not shut it down, allowing the Glades County Sheriff to address the issues cited and possibly renew its contract with the government. In 2025, the Trump administration announced that the facility would house inmates again, with no documentation or evidence to show that conditions had improved. Instead, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin parroted a familiar claim that its facilities provide detainees with comprehensive medical, dental, and mental health care, as deaths in ICE custody continue to rise.
While it’s unclear what caused Royer‘s death, the conditions at Glades provide ample opportunity for a young teen to die, whether at the hands of medical abuse, chemical exposure, or beatings by guards. Still, official claims that Royer took his own life attempt to absolve DHS of any wrongdoing despite the deplorable conditions cited.
Royer joins a growing list of ICE detainees who federal officials claim took their own lives in detention. However, just like the Glades County facility, their deaths show clear evidence of abuse, neglect, if not outright murder, inside of ICE detention, contrary to DHS claims.
- Brayan Rayo-Garzon, 27-year-old Colombian immigrant: died in Phelps County Jail in Rolla, Missouri, on April 8, 2025, 100 miles southwest of St. Louis, where he and his family lived. Jail staff and DHS reported that Brayan hung himself in his cell and was found unresponsive, but his mother, Lucy, disputed these claims and said her son had no reason to take his own life. After arriving and being screened at the jail, Brayan denied being suicidal. Five days before, Brayan complained to his mother about the poor quality of the jail’s food and stomach pain. He said he’d received treatment for his stomach pain but told his mother jail staff were keeping him in the dark about his condition. Before his death, Brayan tested positive for TB and COVID and had complained of nausea, vomiting, and muscle aches before his COVID diagnosis. DHS claims Brayan was receiving treatment. Medical examiners from nearby Crawford County have refused to make Brayan’s autopsy public.
- Chaofeng Ge, 32-year-old Chinese immigrant: Chaofeng was found dead in the shower stall at the Monshannon Valley Processing Center in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, last August, hanging by his neck by a torn bed sheet with his hands and legs tied behind his back, raising suspicions about how he could have killed himself. DHS ruled his death a suicide and has rejected FOIA requests from Chaofeng’s family. Investigations at the Monshannon facility, where Chaofeng was held, found numerous complaints about a lack of mental health services, including several habeas corpus filings by detainees desperate to see a judge to get relief. Chaofeng‘s brother stated that after being detained, his brother had said he was suicidal. An investigation by the family also found that Chaofeng was in extreme distress before dying, and no one in the facility could speak Mandarin, delaying his ability to communicate his needs, which required relying on an outside facility translator in a process that took days to complete. Chaofeng was at the Monshannon facility for five days, awaiting a court hearing before being found dead.
- Geraldo Lunas-Campos, 55-year-old Cuban immigrant: DHS initially reported that Geraldo died after experiencing “medical distress” on January 3rd at Camp East Montana, in El Paso, Texas. His death was later ruled a homicide by the El Paso County Medical Examiner, who determined Geraldo died by asphyxiation. After the homicide determination, DHS issued an updated report citing that “spontaneous use of force” was used on Geraldo to prevent him from killing himself.
- Victor Manuel Diaz, 36-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant: Victor was found dead inside the Camp Montana medical clinic on Jan 14th. DHS ruled his death a suicide, but Victor’s family stated he had no reason to be suicidal and would have been reunited with family, including his two young sons, 10 and 15, in Nicaragua following deportation. Victor died shortly after 55-year-old Geraldo Lunas-Campos, who local authorities found died of homicide and not suicide as DHS had originally claimed at the Camp East Montana facility. In a move to prevent the public release of Victor’s cause of death, DHS announced that his cause of death will be determined by military authorities, even though Victor is not a soldier or sailor. Current and former detainees in the privately run Camp East Montana facility have described numerous horrors at the facility, including overcrowding, medical neglect, and the spread of disease. 911 records show that staff at the camp made nearly one 911 call per day in its first five months of operation. The camp opened last August, and DHS is facing calls from members of Congress to close the facility.
In all of these cases, detainees experienced hell on earth that all but guaranteed their deaths while in detention. Even with some evidence corroborating DHS’s allegations of suicide, this does not absolve DHS from responsibility. A 2026 study examining suicide deaths in ICE detention between 2018 and 2025 found that most individuals who died of suicide in ICE custody had limited access to mental health care. This finding does not include the slew of other maltreatment and brutality detainees are subjected to in detention, likely contributing to their deaths, even in the case of suicide. DHS, as seen in the cases above, has also gone to great lengths to lie, conceal, and demonize victims in an effort to justify their deaths and mask their murder spree.
Royer, Brayan, Chaofeng, Geraldo, Victor, and so many others should still be here. Their blood lies at the feet of DHS and other private and local officials. From the detention guards to the politicians and private companies that create and administer ICE concentration camps, they ALL must be exposed and held criminally accountable for murder.
We have a responsibility to victims and their families to decry their deaths and be in the streets demanding that their killers be imprisoned. We have a responsibility to fight to see that every person kidnapped and left to rot in ICE detention should be freed, and the deportations stop!
We cannot return to business as usual while these deaths continue. Join us around the country on April 18th where we will put killer ICE agents, and the politicians who direct them on trail at peoples tribunals!
Justice for Royer Perez Jimenez!
Justice for Brayan Rayo-Garzon!
Justice for Chaofeng Ge!
Justice for Geraldo Lunas-Campos!
Justice for Victor Manuel Diaz!
Stop the Deportation!
Free ALL the detained!
Jail killer ICE agents!
Dare to Struggle 