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A recent federal inspection uncovered widespread failures in suicide prevention and intervention protocols at a troubled South Florida immigration detention center less than two weeks before a teenager died there in what authorities have described as a presumed suicide.
During a three-day inspection at the Glades County Detention Center in early March — less than two weeks before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the death of 19-year-old Royer Perez-Jimenez — personnel with ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight (ODO) reviewed detainee files and found repeated breakdowns in basic suicide screening and monitoring procedures.
According to the 12-page report released April 21 (which is attached at the bottom of this story), staff at the facility near Lake Okeechobee either failed to provide detainees with initial mental health screenings within 12 hours of intake, as per policy, or didn’t provide them at all. The inspection also found that staff weren’t obtaining information on detainees’ history of suicidal behavior or current suicidal ideation or performing welfare checks every eight hours, as required with suicidal detainees. Instead, staff at the detention center were conducting checks on suicidal detainees every 12 to 34 hours, or not at all, according to the report.
Neither ICE nor DHS responded to New Times‘ request for comment about the report on the county-run jail, which houses immigrant detainees near Florida’s Lake Okeechobee and has long faced allegations of abuse.
The inspection took place March 3 through March 5 and coincided with the detention of Perez, a teenager from Chiapas, Mexico, who died of a presumed suicide at the facility less than two weeks later. Early on March 16, Perez — who appears to be the youngest person to die in ICE custody during president Donald Trump’s second term — was found dead at the jail from what ICE has called a “presumed suicide,” although his official cause of death remains under investigation. His family has repeatedly questioned that account, saying they do not believe he took his own life.
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 “Detainee Death Report” released by ICE on April 24 provided additional details about the teen’s death, stating he was found unresponsive around 2:30 a.m. with a “cloth ligature around his neck connected to a fixture in the shower.” While deputies initiated CPR on Perez and medical staff used an automated external defibrillator on him, with emergency medical services arriving shortly after to assume life-saving measures, Perez was pronounced dead at 2:51 a.m., according to the report.
Screenshot via Google Maps
An ICE spokesperson didn’t respond to New Times‘ questions about the report on the teen’s death.
Glades County Detention Center has long faced allegations of abuse. In 2022, 17 members of Congress asked that it be closed, citing immigrants being “subject to racist abuse, often resulting in verbal abuse and violence; sexual abuse, including sexual voyeurism by guards who have watched women shower; life-endangering COVID-19 and medical neglect, 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 and long-term damage to reproductive health.”
The recent inspection appears to be the first at the detention center since 2022. While inspectors visited the facility regularly — either annually or biannually — from 2019 onward, and previously in 2011 and 2015, they had not reported any violations involving suicide prevention during those prior visits.
