Two Deaths in Florida ICE Custody Draw Scrutiny From Canada, Rights Groups

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Canadian citizen Johnny Noviello, 49, was found unresponsive on 23 June at the Federal Detention Center in Miami and was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later. The long-time Florida resident, who suffered from epilepsy according to his family, had been detained since 15 May while awaiting deportation after a 2023 drug-trafficking conviction. The cause of death is under investigation by the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.

Three days later, on 26 June, 75-year-old Cuban national Isidro Pérez died after experiencing chest pains at ICE’s Krome detention centre and being transferred to HCA Kendall Hospital, the agency said. Pérez, who entered the United States in 1966 and was arrested on 5 June during a law-enforcement sweep in Key Largo, had a history of cardiac problems and had been hospitalised for unstable angina a week earlier.

The back-to-back fatalities bring the number of detainee deaths in ICE custody to 13 in the current fiscal year, five of them in Florida. Ottawa has formally asked Washington for details of Noviello’s death, while immigrant-rights groups say the incidents underscore chronic overcrowding and medical-care lapses in the agency’s facilities. ICE maintains that detainees receive ‘safe, secure and humane’ treatment and says full death-in-custody reports will be released within 90 days.