Family of Teen Who Died in Florida ICE Custody Speaks Out

When Manuel Perez Ruiz received a phone call on the morning of March 16, he assumed it was his son.

Just three days earlier, 19-year-old, Royer Perez-Jimenez had called from the Glades County Detention Center, a jail on the western shore of Lake Okeechobee that houses immigrant detainees and has long faced allegations of abuse. He was in U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) custody, thousands of miles from his father in Chiapas, Mexico.

But this time, the voice on the other end wasn’t his son’s. It was a police officer.

“I thought they were calling to ask for some documents or requirements,” Perez Ruiz said in a video posted online. “I said, ‘What happened? What is it? Tell me what happened.'”

Early on March 16, the teenager was found dead at the detention center, according to ICE. The agency says he “died of a presumed suicide,” although his official cause of death remains under investigation. He appears to be the youngest person to die in ICE custody since President Donald Trump took office again in January 2025, according to ICE records.

While questions remain about the circumstances of Perez’s death, his grieving family has begun speaking out.

In a video filmed in Chiapas — Mexico’s southernmost state, home to one of the country’s largest Indigenous populations — Perez’s father expresses disbelief at the official account of his son’s death and pleads for help bringing his body home.

The nearly three minute video, shared on Facebook by the account Chiapas 360, shows Perez Ruiz speaking in Tzotzil, an Indigenous language spoken in parts of southern Mexico, as a woman stands beside him, visibly distressed and wiping away tears.

“His life ended inside prison,” Perez Ruiz says in the video, which was translated for New Times by Comunidades Indígenas en Liderazgo (CIELO), an Indigenous women-led nonprofit based in California. “I don’t know what happened.”

The person who called to report his son’s death told him he had died by suicide, Perez Ruiz says in the video.

“It’s something we can’t believe, that he would commit suicide while under the authorities,” says his father, whom New Times was unable to reach for comment. “My son could not have taken his own life like that because he’s not mentally unwell. There’s nothing wrong with him. He was fine.”

In a statement released following Perez’s death, ICE said that Perez was evaluated by medical staff at intake and didn’t report any behavioral health issues, including answering “no” to all suicide screening questions.

A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to New Times’ email request for comment regarding Perez’s father appearing to question officials’ account of his son’s death.

Perez’s father ends the video by saying the family is struggling to bring his body back to their hometown.

“The hardest part now is bringing my son’s body here,” he says. “It’s not cheap, but I want him to arrive here in our town. I’m from Rancho Nuevo. If you can support me now, please help with whatever little you can, and let it come from your hearts as financial support.”

While his loved ones initially created a GoFundMe to raise money to bring Perez’s body to Mexico, the fundraiser appears to have been taken down. It’s unclear whether the family is receiving help from Mexican authorities.

A spokesperson for the Mexican consulate in Miami has not responded to New Times’ emails asking whether Perez’s body has been or will be repatriated to Mexico.

According to ICE’s statement, at around 2:30 a.m. on March 16, a Glades County detention officer found Perez “unconscious and unresponsive.” Staff began CPR, and medical personnel arrived minutes later, determined he was without a pulse, and took over resuscitation efforts before requesting emergency medical services.

At around 2:40 a.m., fire rescue officials arrived and “initiated-life sustaining interventions,” according to the agency. He was pronounced dead at 2:51 a.m.

When Perez first entered the United States in February 2022 at age 15, he encountered U.S. Border Patrol and was “granted a voluntary return” to Mexico the same day, according to ICE. He later “illegally reentered” the U.S., although it’s unclear when, exactly.

On January 22, Perez was arrested by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office and charged with impersonation and resisting an officer, both misdemeanors, according to an arrest report obtained by New Times (although ICE’s statement characterized the impersonation charge as a felony).

Police say they tried to pull Perez over while he was riding a scooter because he was crossing traffic lanes without using a crosswalk. But he allegedly refused to stop and gave officers multiple false names. According to the report, Perez eventually told police he had “overstayed his visa and is currently in the United States illegally,” and said he had no documentation to prove his name or date of birth.

Body-camera footage obtained by New Times shows the encounter quickly escalating, with officers shoving Perez to the ground.

In the footage, two officers are seen tackling Perez to the ground and struggling to communicate with him. Perez eventually tells them through a Spanish-language translator that he speaks the Mayan language of Tzotzil.

The same day Perez was arrested, ICE placed an immigration detainer on him, the agency says, and he was transferred into ICE custody on February 21 before being moved to Glades County Detention Center on February 26.

Perez’s father told Noticias Telemundo that his son is from San Juan Chamula, a town in the highlands of Chiapas inhabited by the indigenous Tzotzil Maya people. The oldest of five siblings, he left home for the U.S. at age 15, hoping to work and make money. He worked at a Mexican restaurant near Daytona Beach in Florida.

Perez’s death drew international attention and scrutiny, including from Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum, who called for a “full investigation” into the circumstances.

“This can’t be happening,” Sheinbaum told reporters, referring to the death of Perez and two other Mexican immigrants who died in ICE detention earlier this year.

“The report says the young man killed himself,” she continued. “Nonetheless, we want a full investigation.”

By ICE’s own count, at least 37 people have died in ICE custody since January 2025. On March 25, just days after Perez’s death, another Mexican national died in ICE detention; Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano, who lived in Los Angeles, died after detention center staff discovered him “unconscious and unresponsive,” according to ICE.