Expert warns Trump policy is causing a wave of deaths via 'systemic breakdown'

A prominent legal expert is warning that President Donald Trump's policies are directly responsible for a wave of deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities.

According to ABC News, "An Associated Press investigation found that at least 10 detainees, all men, have died by suicide since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, a pace that far exceeds the growth in the detainee population, according to a review of ICE data, autopsy reports, coroner’s rulings, and police records. Since October, seven deaths have been classified as suicides, a number that is already the most for any fiscal year in the agency’s history. ICE has usually recorded one or no such deaths annually."

One of these tragedies was the case of Brayan Rayo Garzon, who was isolated and alone in a Missouri detention facility as he battled COVID-19 symptoms. He was prohibited from his routine calls with his mother, his only link to the outside world, and begged a guard in a handwritten Spanish note that, “I feel in my heart that she’s very worried about me,” only to be ignored. He was found unresponsive in his cell an hour after this interaction, and a later medical examination determined he died by suicide.

These are not isolated tragedies, argued American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick in a post to X, but part of a pattern of neglect and abuse.

"Suicides in detention are often preventable," he wrote. "Well-run facilities can’t end them entirely, but good protocol, sufficient staffing, and proper medical and mental health screening can make a huge difference."

Ultimately, he warned, this jump in suicide deaths "is a sign of a systemic breakdown."

All of this comes as the administration moves for indefinite and summary detentions so at odds with the law that even Trump-appointed federal judges are ordering some of the detainees released.