ICE death toll shows Asian communities under threat

A 2025 survey reported that 63% of Asian immigrants now feel unsafe in America because of their race

- RUSSELL JEUNG GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

MORE THAN 30 people died while being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2025, marking it as the deadliest year for those held in custody by the agency in two decades. At least five of the detainees who died were Asian nationals: Chaofeng Ge, Nhon Ngoc Nguyen, Tien Xuan Phan, Kaiyin Wong and Huabing Xie. So far their deaths have received little public attention, even as ICE increases raids, expands capacity at its facilities and accelerates deportations across the country.

As I grieve these deaths, I've also witnessed ways that mass deportations have induced palpable fear throughout the Asian American community. Like the Hispanic and Latino communities, as well as other migrant groups across the U.S., Asian families live under constant threat of unlawful detentions, family separations, neglect, abuse and trauma at for-profit prisons.

In August, ICE guards found 32-year-old Chaofeng Ge hanging in a shower stall at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pa. Although investigators ruled Ge’s death a suicide, the autopsy report stated that he was found with his hands and feet tied behind his back. Despite these troubling circumstances, the federal government has yet to release the full records regarding Ge's death to his family.

Chaofeng’s brother filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in November seeking transparency and accountability, and complained that the prison provided no Mandarin interpretation, leaving his brother isolated and possibly without access to medical care or mental healthcare while in custody.

Seven detainees at the California City Immigration Processing Center have made similar claims, accusing ICE of inhumane conditions inside its network of for-profit detention centers, including delayed medical care, inadequate food and water, and limited access to interpreters. Things are likely to only get worse unless the corporate profiteering that drives mass detention ends now.