Ice death squads terrorize immigrants and the nation?

Ice death squads terrorize immigrants and the nation?

Between January 20, 2025 and June 4, 2026, 52 people died in ICE custody

By Lynda Carson - July 9, 2026

David J. Venturella serves as the Interim Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He is responsible for managing the agency's daily operations, overseeing the investigative branch, and enforcement operations.

According to Wikipedia, “There have been at least 38 shootings by immigration agents since January 20, 2025, resulting in 9 deaths.”

That’s right. Federal immigration officials / ICE agents have been involved in at least 38 shootings since January 2025, resulting in 9 deaths, including the shooting deaths of U.S. citizen’s Renee Good, and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last January. According to ‘The Atlantic’ a few days ago, the death of Renee Good has not yet been properly investigated.

Tuesday Morning Shooting Death Of Lorenzo Salgad Araujo In Houston.

On Tuesday morning, July 7, 52 year old Lorenzo Salgad Araujo was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston, and was accused by ICE of weaponizing his vehicle as he tried to flee for his life or arrest from an unmarked vehicle, along with three others in a van. ICE did not provide any proof or evidence that that Araujo tried to hit an ICE agent with his vehicle.

Reportedly, “He did not deserve to die,” said Ronaldo Salgado, the son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, during a press conference led by the League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac) on Wednesday in Houston, Texas.

Salgado, 52, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official on Tuesday morning, while on his way to work at a construction site. Salgado’s family said he was a “hardworking family man”, had lived in the US for more than 30 years and was in the process of obtaining his work permit.”

Additionally, reportedly, “The DHS’s statement on Tuesday evening echoes similar statements by the department. In January, the DHS justified the fatal shooting of Renee Good by claiming she “weaponized her vehicle” against an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Video of the shooting later cast doubt on the DHS’s claims.

Roman Palomares, the national president of Lulac, a civil rights organization that is helping the Salgado family, criticized ICE and the DHS for their claims during Wednesday’s press conference.

“We do not believe you, you have not earned that trust,” Palomares said. “ICE has not earned that trust from the American people.”

PHR Report: Between January 20, 2025 and June 4, 2026, 52 People Died In ICE custody.

Making matters worse, according to a June 25, 2026, release with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), called “Dying in Detention - Rising Deaths in an Expanding US Immigration Detention System,” in part it says, “In the 500 days between President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025 and June 4, 2026, 52 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the United States. The mortality rate of deaths in ICE custody is at its highest level in over a decade and has more than doubled since Trump’s second term began. The rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration, and more than two and a half times as high as that of the first Trump administration. The current trend-level rate is now even higher than during the Covid-19 pandemic. Urgent action is needed to address this crisis and prevent further deaths.

The second Trump administration launched an aggressive campaign to expand immigration detention, pushing the number of people held to a record high of over 71,000 people in January 2026. The surge in deaths is much worse than what one would expect even considering the much higher number of people in detention. Deaths in ICE custody have increased at a rate disproportionate to the growth in the detained population. January 2025- January 2026 saw an approximately 140 percent increase in the annual mortality rate compared to the prior year.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:

“UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Friday called for stronger independent oversight of the United States immigration detention system and investigations into all deaths in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Those responsible for violations of the law must be held to account, and the rights of the victims’ families to truth, justice and reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence must be upheld,” Mr. Türk said in a statement.”

Amnesty International Report:

A recent as December 4, 2025, Amnesty International released a new report that documents cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of immigrants at two immigration detention centers in Florida, including the Everglades Detention Facility (“Alligator Alcatraz”) and the Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome).

According to a press release with Amnesty International, in part it says, “The report, Torture and enforced disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human rights violations at “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome in Florida, reveals human rights violations that, in some cases amount to torture, occurring at Krome and “Alligator Alcatraz” within an increasingly hostile anti-immigrant climate in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis, whose administration has intensified criminalization and mass detention of migrants and people seeking safety. Findings were gathered during a September 2025 research mission. 

“These findings confirm a deliberate system built to punish, dehumanize, and hide the suffering of people in detention,” said Ana Piquer, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Americas. “Immigration enforcement cannot operate outside the rule of law or exempt itself from human rights standards. What we are seeing in Florida should alarm the entire region.”

The research concluded that people arbitrarily detained in “Alligator Alcatraz” are living in inhuman and unsanitary conditions including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy – including cameras above the toilets.
  
People interviewed shared that access to medical care is inconsistent, inadequate, or denied all together, placing individuals at serious risk of physical and mental harm. People reported being always shackled when they were outside their cage. Other treatment those detained have endured amounts to torture, including being put in the “box”,described as a 2×2 foot cage-like structure people are put in as punishment – sometimes for hours at a time exposed to the elements with hardly any water – with their hands and feet attached to restraints on the ground.
  
“Alligator Alcatraz” operates outside federal oversight, without the basic tracking systems used in ICE facilities. The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained at Alligator Alcatraz facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances when the whereabouts of a person being detained there is denied to their family, and they are not allowed to contact their lawyer.
   
“These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there,” said Amy Fischer, Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights with Amnesty International USA.  “This is unreal – where’s the oversight?”

Congress is poised to provide more than $70 billion in fresh funding to ICE.

Reportedly, on May 27, 2026, “Congress is poised to provide more than $70 billion in fresh funding to drive the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration crackdown and mass deportation agenda months before the midterm federal elections.

Once the president signs that bill into law, the money will flow to the Department of Homeland Security, then nationwide to a web of immigration detention sites that include Delaney Hall in Newark. Tensions there between protestors and immigration agents exploded over the Memorial Day holiday weekend amid a hunger and labor strike.

In the melee on Monday, guards pepper-sprayed U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) and pushed back protestors who had watched the facility all weekend. Kim and Democratic Reps. Rob Memendez (D-8th), Nellie Pou (D-9th), LaMonica McIver (D-10th) and Analilia Mejía (D-11th) visited Delaney at various times during the national holiday.

“I saw chaos inside and outside of the ICE detention center Delaney Hall today,” Kim said in a statement Monday. “Detainees protesting the lack of due process, the disgusting food and poor treatment while their families and advocates stood outside calling for help.”

“Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire,” Kim added. “Civilians were tackled and restrained, and agents fired pepper balls and spray into the crowd.”
Citing ongoing permitting issues with the Delaney complex, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Tuesday called for the state Attorney General’s Office to investigate the site.

Worms In Food: “An estimated 300 detainees at Delaney entered their fourth day of a hunger strike on Tuesday in protest of poor health care and food. The building holds  900 people on average, according to data from TRAC, a nonpartisan research group that analyzes federal records, “We feel vulnerable and, in a way, kidnapped — detained without justification — not to mention that we are being tortured physically and psychologically due to the poor food resources provided in these detention centers,” Delaney detainees wrote in an open letter.”

David J. Venturella, Interim Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

David J. Venturella serves as the Interim Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He is responsible for managing the agency's daily operations, overseeing the investigative branch, and enforcement operations.

In a May 27, 2026 letter from Senator Elizabeth Warren to David Venturella, in part it says, “I write with questions about your appointment to serve as the Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the extent to which it raises fresh concerns about the abuse of the revolving door and the cloud of corruption that surrounds ICE and the entire Trump Administration. You worked at the GEO Group, the largest private prison contractor operating immigrant detention facilities across the U.S., for over a decade prior to joining ICE; that history, and your reported use of DHS personnel and resources for personal or political favors, raise serious concerns about your ability to effectively serve as ICE’s leader, especially at a time when the Trump Administration’s mass deportation agenda is systematically violating fundamental human rights.

Your career can be characterized as a continuous, decades-long trip in and out of the revolving door between ICE and the private prison industry. Your first stint at ICE was 22 years long, where you served in various leadership positions overseeing detention policy and contracts, including serving as Director for the Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE from February 2011 to June 2012. After leaving ICE, you spent over a decade, between 2012 through 2023, climbing the ranks as a high-ranking executive at GEO Group and managing the company's federal contracts for immigration and detention facilities. Before returning to ICE in February 2025, you continued serving GEO Group as a paid consultant through January 31, 2025. During your tenure, GEO Group became one of ICE’s largest and most profitable contractors, operating detention centers across the country. Advocates have said that “If there was ever a classic example of the revolving door phenomena, it’s David Venturella,” as you have cycled from high-ranking positions at ICE directly into and out of a corporation profiting from mass detention and deportation.

GEO Group has already earned immense profit from the Trump Administration’s immigration agenda. The company reportedly houses roughly one-third of all ICE detainees and has secured massive new contracts as the Administration ramps up its unprecedented detention expansion. According to GEO Group CEO George Zoley on a May 6, 2026 earnings call, “Last year was the most successful period for new business wins in our company’s history, and we expect 2026 to be a very active year as well.” The company has been actively scaling up to capitalize on President Trump’s immigration agenda, expanding its available bed space from 15,000 to 32,000 and aggressively pursuing contracts to meet its new capacity. For example, to secure a 15-year contract for 1,000 beds in Newark, New Jersey, GEO Group sued the state over its state law that bars private and public companies from contracting with ICE to detain immigrants. In total, last year, ICE contracts drove a year in which GEO made “up to approximately $520 million in new incremental annual revenues… the largest amount of new business.”

GEO Group’s rapid expansion has coincided with the Trump Administration’s persistent revolving door and corruption concerns. Numerous high-profile U.S. officials formerly worked for GEO Group. For example, Border Czar Tom Homan, whose office reportedly played a role in your hiring at ICE, worked as a paid consultant for GEO Group and has seemingly failed to honor his promise to recuse himself from contracting decisions—with his former colleagues reportedly “trading on Tom Homan.” Mr. Homan reportedly accepted $50,000 cash in a bag in exchange for a promise for future immigration-related contracts, and has called for expanding ICE’s detention capacity to “at least 100,000 beds.” Former Attorney General Pam Bondi worked as a lobbyist for GEO Group, and at least six former ICE officials who left government over the past decade ended up working at GEO Group.”

I was not able to find any financial disclosure forms or ethic forms releases on David Venturella.

Reportedly, “David Venturella, a former executive at the GEO Group, consulted for the Department of Homeland Security, working on contracts with the same company he used to represent. DHS hired him as a full-time adviser and granted him a waiver from the ethics rule, according to interviews and documents obtained by @washingtonpost. The maneuver allowed him to avoid Senate confirmation hearings and keep his name off public websites.

Venturella is another shameful example of the revolving door that exists between the federal agencies issuing lucrative immigration detention and prison contracts and the private prison corporations receiving them.

GEO Group: is a private prison and detention company that operates jails, immigration detention centers, and post-release programs in the U.S. and abroad. It contracts with federal agencies like ICE and the U.S. Marshals Service to detain immigrants and incarcerate people for profit. Like all detention centers, GEO Group facilities are rife with systemic abuses, like medical neglect, incentivizing the incarceration of people as a money making scheme. Despite community resistance and legal challenges, GEO group continues to operate with impunity.”

Meanwhile, click here for “The horror of life behind bars and police-prison guard brutality is on-going.”


Lynda Carson may be reached at newzland2 [at] gail.com

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