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Reports emerged this week of the death of two more immigrants in the custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Emmanuel Damas, 56, a Haitian asylum seeker, reportedly died from an infection linked to a toothache that his family said went untreated for two weeks while Damas was incarcerated at the Florence Correctional Center in Arizona.

Damas appears to be the tenth person to die while in ICE custody in 2026, which would bring the total number of people to die while incarcerated by the agency under President Donald Trump to at least 39. Damas’s death was first reported by the Arizona Daily Star on March 4. That day, ICE announced that 48-year-old Alberto Gutierrez-Reyes had died in a California hospital on February 27 after falling ill at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, where the population has skyrocketed in recent months.

Chandler City Councilwoman Christine Ellis, a Haitian American and registered nurse representing the Arizona community near the prison where Damas was incarcerated, spoke to his family and relayed information to local journalists. ICE has not released a statement on Damas and did not immediately respond to a request from Truthout.

“Nobody should die from a toothache,” Ellis told the Arizona Daily Star. “Something has to be done.”

According to Ellis’s account in the Daily Star, Damas first reported a toothache to staff at the prison on February 12 and was given ibuprofen. Family members say he complained for nearly two weeks before collapsing after developing a dangerous infection. He was transferred to a hospital and died on March 2. The family also told Ellis that another detainee reported hearing prison staff laughing and saying Damas was faking as he cried for help.

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While ICE has not yet made an official announcement of Damas’s death, the agency did release a statement on the death of Gutierrez-Reyes, who died last month.

Austin Kocher, a research assistant professor at Syracuse University who analyzes ICE data, noted that the statement made a startling and easily debunked claim: “This is the best health care that many aliens have received in their entire lives.”

“When the [Department of Homeland Security] Assistant Secretary for........

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