1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

You need to investigate ICE and DHS for the skyrocketing death rate in immigration detention — and you need to act now. At least 52 people have died in ICE custody since the start of the current Trump administration, with the death rate rising 140 percent even after accounting for the surge in detainees. That is not a bureaucratic failure. That is a crisis demanding congressional accountability. A joint Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights report, "Dying in Detention," documents cases like Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, 32, who died after 12 days in isolation following a Covid-19 diagnosis. His family filed a FOIA request in October 2025, then a lawsuit in December, and still had received nothing by May 2026. ICE is violating its own 48-hour death reporting requirements and has dismantled internal oversight mechanisms that could catch these failures. Dr. Katherine Peeler of Harvard Medical School, a co-author of the report, calls it "a breathtaking breach of the duty of care." Congress just appropriated $70 billion for DHS through 2029. That money must not fund an expanding system where people are dying at record rates with zero transparency. Withhold funding for further detention expansion, mandate independent investigations of every in-custody death, and require full public disclosure of all death reviews and autopsy reports. Families deserve answers. The law demands accountability.