Brayan Rayo Garzon was desperate. Held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he had spent four days in isolation at a Missouri jail while fighting COVID-19 symptoms of fever and chills.
Medical records reveal his mental health treatment request had been delayed, and jail staff had banned Rayo from his nightly phone calls to his mother to prevent virus transmission.
In handwritten messages, he begged his guards to arrange a conversation with her. “I feel in my heart that she’s very worried about me,” he wrote in Spanish.
A guard took the note and left. Jail records show that within an hour, he was discovered unconscious in his cell. Medical examiners ruled his death a suicide.
Rayo’s April 2025 death marked the beginning of a troubling surge in suicides among ICE detainees that has concerned public health experts and detention specialists. They describe the record number of suicide deaths as evidence that officials are inadequately supervising the detention of tens of thousands of immigrants caught in the Trump administration’s intensive deportation efforts.
A comprehensive Associated Press investigation discovered that no fewer than 10 detainees, all male, have taken their own lives since President Donald Trump assumed office in January 2025, a rate that dramatically outpaces the increase in the detainee population, based on analysis of ICE data, autopsy findings, coroner determinations, and police documentation. Since October, seven deaths have been ruled suicides, already setting a record for any fiscal year in the agency’s existence. ICE typically records one or zero such deaths each year.
“Something is going profoundly wrong from any kind of public health or mental health perspective,” said Dr. Sanjay Basu, a University of California-San Francisco epidemiologist who cowrote a study documenting the increase in mortality and suicide rates among ICE detainees. “This is one of those alarming, sudden increases.”
Nine of those who died were Hispanic men from four different countries, the AP discovered. One individual was a Chinese citizen. They averaged 32 years old. While Trump has described deportation targets as the “worst of the worst,” seven of the 10 had no history of violent offenses in the U.S.
These suicides represent nearly one-fifth of the 51 deaths in ICE custody since January 2025. Most of those deaths resulted from natural causes, and experts believe many could have been prevented with prompt medical attention.
Department of Homeland Security acting assistant secretary Lauren Bies said suicide deaths in ICE custody remain “extremely rare.”
Bies said detention staff follow protocols to protect detainees who show signs of self-harming and that ICE requires annual suicide prevention training. She said detainees receive comprehensive healthcare, including mental health services.
The causes behind any suicide are complicated, and each death typically involves multiple contributing elements, experts note. ICE detainees describe overwhelming stress following detention, anxiety about returning to countries where they may face danger, and frustration and isolation from communication difficulties due to language barriers.
Detainees can also experience hopelessness because of immigration law’s complexity. Unlike those in the criminal justice system, most detainees lack legal representation and their detention for immigration violations is not intended as punishment.
ICE assumes responsibility for their welfare when they enter detention, and experts say properly managed facilities should experience few, if any, suicides. This is because staff can take measures to reduce the likelihood that detainees harm themselves by identifying at-risk individuals, providing them care and monitoring them carefully, the experts explained.
AP’s investigation found that ICE detention centers have repeatedly fallen short in ways that violate ICE’s own standards.
A review of the 10 suicide deaths showed the men died throughout ICE’s detention network, including at centers operated by private contractors for years and county jails that recently became ICE partners. The AP discovered that facility staff overlooked warning signs of distress, postponed mental health treatment and failed to monitor detainees already considered at risk. They also allowed detainees access to materials that could be used for self-harm, according to AP’s examination of ICE inspection reports and death records.
In some instances, they placed distressed detainees in isolation, which can worsen feelings of humiliation and helplessness, experts say.
ICE has consistently stated that it screens detainees within 12 hours of arrival for medical, dental and mental health conditions.
At least three of the nine facilities where ICE detainees died by suicide have had difficulty meeting that standard, according to ICE inspection reports and jail records.
Dr. Homer Venters, former chief medical officer of New York City jails who previously consulted with ICE on preventing detainee deaths, called the rise in suicides terrifying.
The increase “reflects failures in how the system’s being operated, and particularly failures in how the first stages of coming into detention are happening so that people aren’t being assessed adequately,” Venters said. “And then if that receiving screening picks up red flags, they’re not acted on in a way that reduces the risk of them having preventable death.”
Among those who ended their own lives was a 19-year-old from Mexico who had been detained after a misdemeanor traffic violation while riding his scooter.
Another was a 36-year-old restaurant employee who lost touch with his family in Nicaragua after ICE detained him in Minnesota and transferred him to a crowded facility in Texas. A third was a 45-year-old who had repeatedly entered the U.S.-Mexico border illegally and had an extensive criminal history.
Rayo, who took his own life after pleading to speak with his mother, was a Colombian military veteran who had worked as a street vendor in his homeland. A week after celebrating his 26th birthday in 2023, his family crossed the U.S. border in California. He was held for three months before being allowed to live with family in St. Louis, records and interviews reveal.
His mother, Adriana Garzon, said Rayo adapted quickly to American life, forming friendships easily and working as a house painter and food delivery driver. He wanted to save money to hire an attorney to help him remain in the country after a judge in 2024 ordered his return to Colombia, she said.
He was arrested in March 2025 by St. Louis police after being caught using a stolen credit card, which he had received from a friend, at a vape shop, court records show. ICE then took him into custody. An ICE record obtained by AP classified Rayo as a laborer who was a low risk to public safety.
ICE placed Rayo in the Phelps County jail in Rolla, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from St. Louis.
The deaths have exposed gaps in treatment and oversight across ICE’s system, where the detained population has increased by 50% to 60,000 during Trump’s second term.
Five died in centers operated by longtime ICE detention partners, CoreCivic and the GEO Group. A sixth died at a facility run by an inexperienced contractor that ICE has since replaced. Three died in jails operated by sheriffs, and one at a federal prison.
“We are deeply saddened by and take very seriously the passing of any individual in our care,” CoreCivic spokesperson Brian Todd said.
GEO Group spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said the company trains staff on suicide prevention and seeks “to maintain a safe and secure environment in compliance with the standards and requirements set by the federal government.” Officials at the three jails either declined comment or didn’t return messages.
Leo Cruz Silva, a 34-year-old who had repeatedly illegally entered the country from Mexico, experienced a severe mental health crisis following his detention after an arrest for public intoxication last fall in a St. Louis suburb, records show.
For two nights in Missouri’s Ste. Genevieve County Jail, Cruz screamed, hid under his bed and reported hallucinations, according to an ICE report on his death. Yet he did not get help quickly.
A nurse ordered antipsychotic medications and planned to get him treatment the next week, the ICE report said.
On the third day, he was found dead in his cell.
Chaofeng Ge arrived in ICE custody last summer at a Pennsylvania facility run by the GEO Group in mental distress, having pleaded guilty to a minor gift card fraud and attempted suicide in state custody, said David Rankin, an attorney representing Ge’s family.
In five days at the facility, he did not get mental health treatment and was unable to communicate because no one spoke Mandarin, Rankin said. Ultimately, Ge went unmonitored before he was found hanged in a shower stall.
“It’s clear that ICE has taken very few steps to ensure the safety of these people,” Rankin said. “They appear to want to make this process as cruel and inhuman as possible. It’s completely unacceptable.”
At Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, 36-year-old Victor Diaz died by suicide in a medical holding room in January, according to an ICE report. He had been moved into isolation after reporting harassment by fellow detainees, the report said.
Days earlier at the same facility, Geraldo Lunas Campos died of asphyxia after ICE said guards restrained him following a suicide attempt. His death was ruled a homicide by a medical examiner, and Trump administration officials said the FBI was investigating its circumstances.
ICE inspectors visited the facility in February, documenting 49 violations of detention standards at what was then ICE’s largest detention facility, according to their report.
The report found that staff did not record “required checks to prevent significant self-harm and suicide” while inspectors found tools and equipment unsecured and unaccounted for throughout the facility that could be used for harm. Calls to 911 show several other detainees had attempted suicide there.
At the time of the deaths and inspections, Acquisition Logistics was the contractor running the facility. ICE has since replaced Acquisition Logistics with another contractor. Acquisition Logistics did not return messages seeking comment.
The Phelps County Jail had started taking ICE detainees a month before Rayo’s arrival. Sheriff Michael Kirn, a Republican in a county where voters overwhelmingly supported Trump’s reelection, told commissioners his department’s budget was hurting and partnering with ICE could generate millions in revenue.
Records show Rayo’s trouble started immediately. It took the jail 35 hours to conduct the initial medical screening that ICE promises within 12 hours, according to jail records obtained by the AP under the open records law.
Rayo exhibited labored breathing and told a nurse he was anxious and wanted mental health treatment.
A nurse who didn’t speak Spanish used a “handheld translator” to assess Rayo, concluding he denied thoughts of suicide and depression, according to the documents compiled by the Missouri State Highway Patrol during an investigation into Rayo’s death.
She recommended him for the general population, listing his physical and mental condition as stable, records show. And she referred him for a routine mental health appointment.
Two days later, he reported head pain and body aches. Staff learned he was positive for exposure to tuberculosis bacteria. He was sent to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with COVID-19. He was returned to jail the following day.
The mental health appointment was scheduled but canceled due to “mental health clinic time and staff,” a jail record shows. Two days later, they again canceled his appointment, this time citing his coronavirus infection.
The delays violated an ICE standard requiring mental health treatment within a week of a referral.
Bies, the DHS spokesperson, said Rayo received “high-quality medical care during his time in ICE custody.”
To ease his anxiety, Rayo called his mother before bed to share a Catholic blessing. “I gave him strength,” said Garzon, whose first name Adriana was tattooed on her son’s arm.
As Rayo grew sicker with nausea, chills and aches, staff moved him into a cinderblock isolation cell with a surveillance camera overhead for closer monitoring and to prevent the spread of disease. He was not allowed to call his mother.
On his fourth day of isolation, Rayo passed two notes under his door, begging guards to let him talk to his mom. In one, which was reviewed by AP, he appealed to the guard’s humanity. “I know you have family, and you know that they worry about us,” he wrote in Spanish. “God bless you.”
The English-speaking guard used a colleague’s phone to translate the notes, and wrote in a report that he planned to follow up.
Within an hour, guards found Rayo unconscious on his bed with a sheet around his neck.
Emergency responders tried to revive him, transporting him to a hospital. That’s when an official called Rayo’s mother — to let her know her son was in very bad shape and would be flown to a St. Louis medical center. At the hospital, a doctor gave her the devastating news: Her son was dead.
