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A 27-year-old Guatemalan man has died while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in Miami.
Jairo Garcia-Hernandez, a Guatemalan national, died on February 16 at Larkin Community Hospital in Miami. According to an ICE press release, he was pronounced dead after he collapsed unexpectedly and became unresponsive.
“Despite lifesaving efforts by facility staff, Garcia-Hernandez died,” the release reads. “His cause of death is under investigation.”
Garcia-Hernandez, who ICE says had a “long history of severe medical complications,” was being held by the federal law enforcement agency at a local Miami hospital at the time of his death. The agency says he was “already in ill health” when ICE took him into custody last January.
While it’s unclear when Garcia-Hernandez entered the U.S., or what his immigration status was, ICE says his “first encounter” with immigration officials was on April 18, 2021, when U.S. Border Patrol officials released him near Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
Several years later, on October 31, 2023, police in New York arrested him for trespassing, resisting arrest, obstruction of government administration, impersonating a law enforcement officer, and criminal possession of a firearm, according to ICE. In May 2024, he was reportedly convicted on two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and sentenced to time served, upon which county officials released him.
On January 21, 2025, just weeks after President Donald Trump took office and began his aggressive immigration enforcement, police in New York “encountered [Garcia-Hernandez] and contacted U.S. Border Patrol for assistance.”
In October 2025, Garcia-Hernandez was transferred to the Larkin Community Hospital Behavioral Health Center in Hollywood. Months later, in January, he was transferred to the Larkin Community Hospital in Miami, “where, as an immunocompromised individual, he was treated for fever.”
Less than a month later, he died, according to ICE.
“On Feb. 16, Garcia-Hernandez collapsed unexpectedly and became unresponsive at 1:06 a.m.,” the ICE press release reads. “Larkin Community Hospital medical staff immediately began cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but he was declared deceased at 2:01 a.m.”
At least 35 people have died in ICE custody since January 2025, according to ICE.
Those deaths have included 29-year-old Honduran Genry Ruiz-Guillen, who died of complications from schizoaffective disorder at Krome Detention Center; 44-year-old Ukrainian national Maksym Chernyak (also in ICE custody at Krome), whose wife told NBC 6 he didn’t receive adequate medical care; 44-year-old Marie Ange Blaise of Haiti at the Broward Transitional Center; 49-year-old Canadian Johnny Noviello, who died after six weeks in immigration detention in downtown Miami; and Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh, a 67-year-old Jordanian man who died of suspected cardiac arrest while in ICE custody at Miami’s Larkin Community Hospital.
This is a breaking story and will be updated as events warrant.
