Fury as teen dies in ICE jail shut down for abuse — and agency can't find arrest record
A 19-year-old Mexican migrant died at a troubled Florida immigration detention facility early Monday, becoming the youngest person to die in ICE custody since President Donald Trump launched his second-term immigration crackdown — and sparking questions about the missing paper trail behind his detention.
Royer Perez-Jimenez was found unconscious and unresponsive just after 2:30 a.m. at the Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Facility staff performed CPR and fire rescue arrived minutes later. He was declared dead about 20 minutes after he was found. ICE said his death is being treated as a presumed suicide, though the official cause remains under investigation.
His death marked the 13th in ICE custody since January and the 46th since Trump returned to office, compared to 24 total deaths across all four years of the Biden administration, according to The Associated Press.
ICE said Perez-Jimenez was arrested Jan. 22 by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office and charged with felony fraud for impersonation and resisting an officer before being transferred to ICE custody in February. But when the AP requested his arrest report from the sheriff, the agency said it searched its system, and Perez-Jimenez didn't appear in it.
The medical examiner's office didn't respond to reporters' requests for his autopsy report. The Florida prosecutor's office referred all inquiries to the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney General's office.
The facility where Perez-Jimenez died has a troubled past. The center was shut down by the Biden administration before being reopened under Trump. Detainees have reported worms in food, malfunctioning toilets and overflowing sewage.
The teen's death ignited a social media firestorm, with writer and advocate Thomas Kennedy noting the facility has also seen a near-fatal carbon monoxide leak and regular exposure to a toxic disinfectant chemical spray linked to severe medical harms.
"19 year old dead at an ICE detention in Florida center know for mistreatment, including a 'near-fatal carbon monoxide leak last November; and regular exposure to highly dangerous levels of a toxic disinfectant chemical spray linked to severe medical harms,'" he wrote on X.
Perez-Jimenez was also the second person to die in ICE custody this week. An Afghan immigrant whose family said he had been evacuated after working with U.S. forces died in a Texas hospital after being detained by immigration authorities.
The Mexican government called detention deaths "unacceptable" in a statement Thursday and demanded a prompt U.S. investigation. Officials from the Mexican Consulate in Miami visited the facility and requested documentation.
The anti-Trump social media account PatriotTakes called it "another death at the hands of ICE."
Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor for the Atlantic, said the facilities amounted to "concentration camps."
Dr. Jill Stein called on Congress to strip ICE funding from the DHS budget bill.
Immigration attorney Nicolette Glazer wrote on X, "Horrific! A teenager is the latest victim of punitive immigration detention. He died in the notorious South Glades detention center."
"Immigration detention system deprives people of freedom, isolates people away from loved ones and subjects people to abysmal conditions," said Carly Perez Fernandez, communications director at Detention Watch Network.
Writer Max Granger simply chimed in on X, "Death camps."