WASHINGTON: A detainee died in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Indiana on Monday (Feb 16), with the cause of death under investigation, ICE said on Wednesday, marking at least the seventh death in 2026 in federal immigration custody.
Lorth Sim, a 59-year-old Cambodian national, was being held at the Miami Correctional Facility. Staff found him unresponsive in his cell, ICE said in a statement.
Under US President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown, the number of people detained by ICE has risen to record levels, with deaths also climbing to a two-decade high last year. ICE had some 68,000 people in custody as of early February, up from 40,000 when Trump took office.
Sim came to the US as a refugee in 1983 and became a permanent resident in 1986, according to ICE.
He was arrested and detained in December in Boston, ICE said, adding that an immigration judge had ordered his removal to Cambodia in 2006. ICE said Sim had been arrested previously for disorderly conduct, indecent exposure and larceny and received a suspended sentence and probation.
Democrats and civil rights groups have criticised conditions in ICE detention facilities, calling the conditions inhumane.
Earlier this month, Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who lost dozens of family members in Gaza, was hospitalised for three days following a seizure in US immigration detention. Kordia, a 33-year-old Muslim Palestinian woman whose mother is a US citizen, said she was chained during her hospitalisation.
ICE has said it ensures detainees receive proper medical care and the federal government has denied treating detainees inhumanely.
ICE has come under particular scrutiny following the death of Cuban immigrant Geraldo Lunas Campos in a Texas detention centre on Jan 3.
The El Paso County medical examiner said the death was a homicide due to asphyxia from neck and torso compression and a report by the Washington Post cited a witness who said guards choked Lunas.
The US Department of Homeland Security provided shifting statements about the incident and did not mention choking or homicide. - Reuters
