Yeah, the really horrifying thing here is that most of these deaths (including the ones that have not been covered extensively like Good and Pretti) happened out of the public eye and often with conflicting information about the details. There's certainly many more that are less directly traceable to ICE, but ICE is completely at fault all the same for the pain and fear they're inflicting on so many people. We'll never truly know the scope of the harm being committed.
I tried to find the stories for those listed in this post:
2025/12/31 - Keith Porter Jr, a Black man who grew up in Compton and had recently moved to the San Fernando Valley. He was reportedly firing shots into the air to celebrate the New Year. He was shot by an off-duty ICE agent, his neighbor in his apartment complex. Witnesses report that several people in the complex were firing guns into the air that night, a fairly common (if ill-advised and illegal) way of celebrating especially in LA, but he was the only person who was shot. The agent did not identify himself as law enforcement before shooting at Porter multiple times. There are no videos of the incident. Porter was a legal gun owner with no criminal history, who worked a variety of jobs in an attempt to provide the best life for his two daughters. His father was involved with gangs in Compton while he was growing up, and his friends and family note how important it was to him that he overcame that influence and lived a better life. By all accounts, he was a beloved community member who uplifted those around him.
2026/01/03 - Geraldo Lunas Campos, who was a Cuban migrant who was legally admitted to the US in 1996. He was detained by ICE in July, citing felonies he'd committed in 2003 and 2009 which he'd served his time for previously. His autopsy report confirmed that his death was a homicide, and a witness recounts seeing him handcuffed and held down by multiple agents who put him in a chokehold until he was unresponsive. ICE initially reported that he was in "medical distress", then amended that to describe agents attempting to prevent him from committing suicide, and when the final autopsy report showed evidence of intentional asphyxiation from a hand or foot on his neck, DHS issued another statement underlining his past crimes as justification.
2026/01/05 - Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, a Honduran migrant. He died after weeks of reported heart failure. There's little known about this person, but there are questions about how the quality of care (if any) and conditions in the detention facilities may have worsened his existing heart problems. There are no reports that he committed any crimes during his time in the US.
2026/01/06 - Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, a Honduran migrant who had lived in New Jersey for decades. He had applied for protected status repeatedly for over a decade, but was denied. He was a grandfather, who missed significant time with his children as they grew up because he was attempting to establish a better life for them in the US, which was eventually successful. He spoke to his children frequently after being detained in November, and began reporting health problems almost immediately after arriving at the facility. On January 4 he was admitted to the hospital with unspecified heart problems, and early in the morning on January 6, he passed away. The ultimate cause is not publicly known. His daughter wasn't informed by DHS that her father was suffering health problems or that he had been hospitalized; they only called to let her know he had died. There are no reports that he committed any crimes during his time in the US.
2026/01/07 - Renee Good. We know this one. There are videos. A queer poet who had just dropped her child off at school and stopped to legally observe ICE agents on her way home. Shot three times by an agent who was approaching her car as she drove away from him. When bystanders attempted to provide emergency medical care, the ICE agents prevented them from doing so. She still had a pulse when EMS finally arrived and began life-saving measures, but quickly lost her pulse and was not able to be resuscitated.
2026/01/09 - Parady La, a Cambodian refugee who entered the US as a child when his family fled the Khmer Rouge genocide. He was a lawful permanent resident until that designation was stripped from him, sometime in the last few years, following a criminal history associated with a drug addiction. His family notes that his addiction was triggered after his younger brother was murdered. He was suffering fentanyl withdrawal when he was detained by ICE, and witnesses report that he was not given treatment or even water while he suffered and begged for help for 24 hours. When ICE did respond to him falling unconscious, they administered Naloxone, which is used for drug overdoses and was thus (obviously) not effective. He was admitted to the hospital on January 7, one day after he was detained, with multi-organ failure and anoxic brain injury due to negligent medical care. The DHS statement makes a point to list all of his crimes (one count of simple assault when he was 15, then a history of theft and drug possession) in a clear attempt to justify the negligent treatment.
2026/01/14 - Heber Sanchez Domínguez, a Mexican citizen who entered the country in December 2023. He was detained on January 7. Early in the morning on January 14, he was allegedly found unresponsive, hanging in his cell in a suicide attempt. He leaves a wife and children behind. It's unclear if an autopsy has been performed yet or who performed it if so, and the Mexican consulate is pushing for an investigation. There are no reports that he committed any crimes during his time in the US.
2026/01/14 - Victor Manuel Díaz, a Nicaraguan migrant who entered the country in March 2024 and was detained on January 6. He allegedly committed suicide and was found unresponsive by ICE agents in the afternoon on January 14. He was detained in the same facility as Geraldo Lunas Campos, the man whose "suicide" was ultimately ruled a homicide by the medical examiner. His family reports that he was in the country to make enough money to return to Nicaragua and improve the quality of life for his mother and two children. He worked on a dairy farm for a year and a half, until he contracted tuberculosis in August 2025. He was too afraid to seek medical care until he was too weak to continue working, at which point he was hospitalized for a month and lost his job on the farm. After he recovered, he found another job in a restaurant in Minneapolis, where he'd been working for a little over a week when ICE raided the restaurant and detained Manuel Díaz and three other migrant employees. He had expressed concerns for his safety to his mother prior to the raid due to increased ICE presence in the city. The facility sent his body for autopsy to an army medical center instead of the hospital where Lunas Campos was autopsied, prompting suspicions that DHS is attempting to cover up yet another homicide. Manuel Díaz' family is adamant that he was a deeply religious man who expressed gratitude for his life and his opportunity to work after he recovered from tuberculosis, and that suicide would be unthinkable to him. There are no reports that he committed any crimes during his time in the US.
2026/01/24 - Alex Pretti. We know this one as well, and there are multiple videos contradicting the DHS statements about the incident. Shot at by multiple agents at least 10 times while he was being held prone on the ground, after being pepper-sprayed in the face for filming agents and attempting to protect fellow protesters who were being shoved. Pretti was shot at least three times in the back. Similar to Good, agents refused to allow bystanders to provide emergency medical care as he lay bleeding on the ground. Pretti was a nurse, a legal gun owner, and had no criminal history. People who knew him report that he was a compassionate man who cared deeply for his community and wanted to help protect it from the violence that ultimately ended his life.
And that's where we're at in the last week of January. The 2026 deaths that we know for sure are linked to ICE enforcement. As noted, there are surely others that we can't link quite as directly. There are people suffering. There are people being brutalized. Pretti was the third shooting in Minneapolis -- another man was shot while escaping ICE, who were tracking him via his license plate and who have labeled him as a "violent criminal" for driving without a license and giving a false name to cops. We can't trust anything DHS or this administration in general reports about the conditions and circumstances of this violence. We have to assume people are being mistreated out of sight just as much, or likely much more, than what we can see with our own eyes. And this is not new. It's been happening for the last year.
In addition to recognizing the increased focus on Good and Pretti for being white citizens, I think it's important to note that some of the people who are being hurt and killed are not "perfect victims." Their lives don't always create a perfect, easy narrative of injustice like those two more easily do. But it is so, so important that we all recognize that even if someone did commit crimes, even if they reacted badly to interactions with agents, even if they were mentally ill or addicted to substances, that still doesn't justify any of this. We have to hold strong to the concept that people deserve dignity and fair treatment regardless of who they are or what they've done. Every single life that has been lost and impacted, this year and last year (and all the years before, let's be real), is important. People should not be killed and terrorized and denied medical care, period. Don't let the justifications start to warp your view of other human beings.
