Cuban Man, 27, Dies in Miami ICE Custody

Another person has died of a presumed suicide while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in South Florida, according to a statement from the agency.

Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, a 27-year-old Cuban national, died on April 12 at the Federal Detention Center, a federal prison in downtown Miami that began quietly doubling as an immigration detention center early last year, according to ICE. The agency says Carbonell-Betancourt’s official cause of death remains under investigation.

At least 46 people have died in ICE custody from when president Donald Trump took office in January 2025 to April 2, according to the New York Times.

Carbonell-Betancourt’s death comes just weeks after Royer Perez-Jimenez, a 19-year-old from Mexico, also died of a presumed suicide while in ICE custody in Florida. The teenager, believed to be the youngest person to die in ICE custody since last January, was found dead while in custody at Glades County Detention Center, a jail on the western shore of Lake Okeechobee that houses immigrant detainees and has long faced allegations of abuse.

Perez’s family has repeatedly questioned that account, saying they do not believe he took his own life.

According to ICE’s statement on Carbonell-Betancourt’s death, at around 6:30 a.m. on April 12, a detention officer found him in his cell “in what appeared to be a suicide attempt.” The officer called a medical emergency, and staff began resuscitation efforts. Miami Fire Rescue arrived to continue those efforts, but he was ultimately pronounced dead at around 7:30 p.m.

Carbonell-Betancourt first entered the United States in October 2024, upon which he was “encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, issued a Notice to Appear as an immigrant without valid documents, and released on parole,” according to ICE’s statement.

On November 20, 2025, Carbonell-Betancourt was arrested by the Hialeah Police Department on a felony charge of resisting an officer with violence. According to an arrest report obtained by New Times, police saw him leaving an abandoned farmer’s market in Miami’s Brownsville neighborhood and asked him to place his belongings on the hood of a patrol car. When an officer attempted to pat him down, he began grabbing his belongings, at which point the officer tried to detain him.

According to the report, he “began to physically tense up and pull away from me,” before eventually breaking free and taking a “fighting stance.”

After deploying his taser, the officer says he was able to handcuff him and arrest him, according to the report.

On November 22, while in a Miami-Dade County jail, Carbonell-Betancourt was “encountered by ICE,” for the first time, according to ICE’s statement.

On December 9, 2025, he was taken into police custody again — this time by the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office — on felony charges of battery on a person 65 or older and throwing a deadly missile. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the case was dropped on December 30.

According to an arrest report, Carbonell-Betancourt threw a rock through the front door of his home, striking his roommate in the head. The roommate, who is over 65, was transported to a nearby emergency room and received stitches for a laceration on his forehead.

On February 11, Carbonell-Betancourt was ultimately transferred into ICE custody, “pending immigration removal proceedings,” according to ICE’s statement.

This is a breaking story and will be updated as events warrant.