A second man being held at a US immigration detention facility in Texas has died in two weeks, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday.
Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, originally from Nicaragua, was found “unconscious and unresponsive in his room” on 14 January at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, ICE said in a press release.
“They immediately notified contract medical staff on site to conduct life saving measures,” it said, adding that emergency medical technicians arrived to the facility but could not revive Diaz, who was pronounced dead just after 4pm. ICE asserted that Diaz “died of a presumed suicide” but that the “official cause of his death remains under investigation”.
Diaz was detained on 6 January during the Trump administration’s controversial deportation blitz in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He initially entered the US through the Mexican border in March of 2024, when border patrol agents picked him up and he was given a court date with an immigration judge, then released on parole. On 26 August of last year an immigration judge ordered Diaz’s removal “in absentia”. ICE detained him on 12 January in order to deport him.
The extensive tent facility is located on the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso.
Thirty-two people died in ICE custody last year, the highest number of fatalities in two decades. At least five people have reportedly died in ICE custody this year.