Southern California lawmakers are demanding answers from U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials after two Orange County residents and nearly two dozen others died in federal immigration custody.
U.S. Reps. Dave Min (D-Irving) and Judy Chu (D-Pasadena) noted in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday that 25 people have died while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody so far this year. Deaths in custody have set annual records since the agency began tracking in 2018.
The dead included two Mexican immigrants who had long made their home in Orange County and were transported to the Adelanto ICE processing center in northern Hesperia.
“These are not just numbers on a website, but real people — with families, jobs, hopes and dreams — each of whom died in ICE custody,” the lawmakers wrote. “The following cases illustrate a systemic pattern of delayed treatment, neglect, and failure to properly notify families.”
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, died on Sept. 22 about a month after he was arrested while working at Fountain Valley Auto Wash, his family said in a GoFundMe post. He worked there for 15 years.
He has lived in Westminster since he was 4 years old and had previously been protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The Times previously reported that his application for continued protection was not renewed in 2016.
Ayala-Uribe’s relatives and members of Congress claim he did not receive proper medical care after being detained by ICE in August. Staff at the Adelanto detention facility were aware of his health crisis, according to internal emails obtained by The Times. But Ayala-Uribe was initially taken back to his Adelanto dormitory, where he waited three more days before being transferred to Victor Valley Global Medical Center in Victorville.
ICE officials acknowledged that Ayala-Uribe died at a Victorville hospital while awaiting surgery for an abscess in her buttocks. The suspected cause of the pain was not revealed.
ICE previously said Ayala-Uribe’s death was under investigation.
The second man, Gabriel Garcia-Aviles, 56, who lived near Costa Mesa, died on Oct. 23, about a week after being taken into custody.
ICE said Garcia-Avilez was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol in Santa Ana on Oct. 14 on an outstanding warrant and was eventually transported to the Adelanto center. He spent only a few hours at the Adelanto facility before being taken to a Victorville hospital with “suspected alcohol withdrawal symptoms,” ICE said in a previous statement.
His condition deteriorated rapidly.
The deaths have drawn attention to the treatment of detained immigrants and long-standing concerns about medical services inside Adelanto, one of the largest federal immigration detention centers in California. The situation raises broader concerns about the capacity of immigration detention centers across the country to care for the large number of people rounded up since President Trump made mass deportations part of his second-term agenda.
“These deaths raise serious questions about ICE’s ability to comply with basic detention standards, medical care protocols, and notification requirements and highlight a pattern of serious negligence that requires immediate accountability,” Min and Chu wrote in a letter to ICE Acting Directors Noem and Todd M. Lyons.
The letter was signed by 43 other lawmakers, including Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), J. Luis Correa (D-Santa Ana), John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) and Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).
ICE representatives did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Saturday.
Lawmakers stressed the need to treat immigrants humanely.
Lawmakers said Garcia-Avilez has lived in the United States for three decades. His family was not informed of the severity of his illness until “on his deathbed.” The family drove to the hospital and found him “unconscious, intubated, and…” [with] The blood on his forehead had dried,” there were “cuts on his tongue…broken teeth and bruises on his body.”
“We never got a chance to talk to him again. [the family] His daughter wrote on a GoFundMe page asking for help paying for his funeral. “His absence leaves a hole in our hearts.”
