Another Migrant Dies in a Newly Reopened Detention Facility
Trump Reopened the deadly Glades County Detention Center. A 19 year-old Mexican man just died by suicide there.
March 18, 2026
13th Death of 2026
With sadness, regret, and anger, I report to you the 13th acknowledged death in ICE detention this year. According to this afternoon’s release by ICE, 19 year-old Royer Perez Jimenez, a 19 year-old from Mexico, was pronounced deceased, at 2:51 a.m. on Monday, March 16. The pronouncement followed less than ten minutes of EMS care. He was found unconscious and responsive at 2:34 a.m. by a Glades County detention officer. His death is presumed to be a suicide, ICE reports.
Perez Jimenez is the 25th person ICE has admitted dying in the agency’s custody in Fiscal Year 2026, which isn’t even halfway over.
On Track to Top 60 People Dead in 2026
Today is the 77th day of 2026, and Perez’s death is the 13th of this calendar year. At the current rate (which would be out the window if ICE succeeds in its plan to increase detention to 92,000 beds by the end of the summer), we’re on track for over 60 people dying in ICE custody this year—roughly double the highest known count in the agency’s history.
Once again, ICE drags the man’s name through the mud while his body’s not even cooled off by smearing him as a “criminal”, despite him having been convicted of no crime. It shouldn’t matter if he had. But the ritualistic sullying of people who just died inflicts a pain on their families and communities that sometimes never heals.
Perez had been in ICE custody since February 21—less than a month. His ICE detainer meant he did not get a chance to confront any criminal charges pending against him in Volusia County, where he was arrested on January 22, 2026. ICE arrested him on February 21, but does not account for his location between then and the 26th, when he was moved to the Glades facility.
Reopening Glades Has Deadly Consequences
Among the few good things the people in the prior administration did for immigrants in detention was closing Glades. It was only in response to the demands of organizers, pushed over years and supported through time-sensitive tactics, that forced them to do it. People on the inside helped build the record, too. Simply by honestly and faithfully documenting how people were mistreated there.
But that didn’t matter to the new folks. They reopened the facility, effectively ignoring, if not explicitly embracing, the factual record that led to closing it. Just as they have Dilley, Irwin, and other sites of migrant detention.
What they cannot ignore is the record.
The facility’s negligent care and staffing has been noted by ICE itself in connection with prior migrant deaths. Most recently, Onoval Perez Montufar, who was freed from federal prison due to his risk of dying from COVID during the pandemic before ICE arrested him and transferred him to and between Glades. ICE concluded Oni received medically substandard care at both Glades and Krome prior to his death, and that both facilities violated contractual standards governing medical care.
“A mortality review committee (MRC) determined that Mr. PEREZ’s medical care at [Krome] and [Glades] was not provided within safe limits of practice.” - IHSC Mortality Finding
Findings like these are what makes demonstrably false sentences like this in ICE’s announcement so galling:
All people in ICE custody receive medical, dental and mental health intake screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility; a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility; access to medical appointments; and 24-hour emergency care. At no time during detention is a detained alien denied emergency care.
Yet the media shops who take themselves seriously will simply reprint the above without noting its falsity.
Glades also reportedly poisoned migrants in detention with unbreathable air and harmful, sometimes toxic chemicals, according to a report released in January. '
Here’s an 199-page emergency motion filed by class counsel for people held in the Krome-Glades-Broward deadly trifecta less than two months before Oni Perez died at Glades of Covid. The parties ultimately settled the case in 2022.
ICE’s press shop has a long memory and a liberal pen when it comes to describing people who die in custody. But it develops selective amnesia and employ misinformation by omission when describing the places where they die.
We, on the other hand, have a long memory.
As in all suicides, the following questions arise:
Is there video?
What angles of video were preserved?
Was there an autopsy? Did it reveal any injuries? Did it include a subcutaneous dissection? What was the nature of the toxicology tests run, and what were the results?
Who was the last person to see him alive?
When was that?
Were logs kept of his supervision?
Do they match the video?
What was the quality of the emergency response?
Did he need/have a translator for medical and other interactions?
When was his last call out?
Time will tell how the system answers these questions (including by showing us who’s asking them and when).
Miami Vice
A proper investigation might also ask the obvious: Why are so many people dying in the custody of the ICE ERO Miami Field Office?
Good News on KFaybe FOIA Front
Finally, because it’s Sunshine Week and I’m grateful to you for making it this far, let’s wrap up with a ray of hope on the transparency front.
At least one FOIA judge has now rejected a DHS agency component’s attempt to seek a stay of a rapidly approaching deadline based on the partial government shutdown. That’s a big win for requestors and a totally predictable loss for the secrets-keepers.
Remember: Your government wants you and courts to believe there’s no money to process FOIA requests, because that funding has lapsed, and isn’t covered by the $75 billion bag Congress handed ICE in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. At the same time, this government spending is fully funded and doesn’t violate the Anti-Deficiency Act. Because it’s essential.
