Another migrant has died under Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, the latest case being a Haitian woman who was being held at a Florida center since February.
ICE said in a release that Marie Blaise's cause of death, which took place last Friday, remains under investigation. The agency then noted she was apprehended in the U.S. Virgin Islands "while attempting to board a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina" without a valid visa. She was then taken to three different detention centers, the last one located in Broward, where she died.
A fellow detainee told the Miami Herald that Blaise was complaining about chest pains on the day of her death. She had her blood pressure taken, given pills and told to lie down. However, another detainee said she later "started shaking, screaming 'My chest! My chest!" She was later pronounced death.
Blaise's death comes on the same month as that of Brayan Rayo-Garzon, a Colombian migrant found in a Missouri jail while waiting for deportation. The man was found unresponsive at the Phelps County Jail in Rolla, Missouri, on April 8. He was waiting to be deported since June 2024 when an immigration judge ordered his removal, ICE added in a release announcing the death.
Rayo-Garzon had previously been arrested for shoplifting and was again detained in March for credit card fraud, St. Louis police said.
The agency has been repeatedly accused of mistreating migrants to the point of dying. In fact, according to an investigation conducted by the American Civil Rights Union, about 95 percent of the people that lost their lives while being detained could have been saved with better medical care.
The report found multiple flaws on ICE's current oversight and accountability mechanisms regarding death in detention centers. They have allowed the destruction of evidence, omitted key inculpatory facts and even failed to interview key witnesses. The report also found out that ICE detention centers lack standardized criteria for autopsies and autopsy reports in cases of detention deaths leading to inconsistent and potentially unreliable results.
Health experts that took part of the investigation concluded that out of the 52 deaths between that five-year period, 49 of them were preventable or possibly preventable if appropriate medical care had been provided. Only three deaths were deemed not preventable.
There is no evidence that the deaths of Blaise and Rayo-Garzon, however, were a result of mistreatment from authorities.
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