ICE custody deaths are at a 2-decade high. An Afghan refugee who helped U.S. forces is the latest to die.
Dallas — On March 13, Afghan immigrant Naseer Paktiawal received a call from Immigration and Custom Enforcement, which had just arrested his brother in North Texas. The first thing his brother told him was that he wasn't feeling well.
"I told [the agent] my brother needs help. He's not feeling good. He's feeling pain in his body," he told CBS News in Richardson, Texas. "He told me, don't worry about it. We have a nurse. We will take care of him. And he hung up the phone on me."
Less than 24 hours later, he was told his brother, 41-year-old Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, had died.
Paktiawal, who was evacuated from Afghanistan during the U.S. military withdrawal from the country in the summer of 2021, is the 12th person to die this year while in ICE custody. That's triple the number that had died by this point last year. In 2025, 31 ICE detainees died, a two-decade high, according to a CBS News analysis of ICE records.
The rising death toll comes as ICE's detention population hit record highs amid President Trump's aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration. As of early February, ICE was holding more than 68,000 people in detention centers across the U.S., agency figures show.
But even after accounting for the number of people in detention each year, 2025 still had the highest death rate — 5.6 people per 10,000 detainees — since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a CBS News analysis found.
Paktiawal had no pre-existing medical conditions, according to his family and ICE, and his sudden death is still under investigation. His family said he fought alongside the U.S. military in Afghanistan for roughly a decade.
"He was a hero," Imrain Paktiawal, 12, one of his sons, told CBS News. "And he will be always a hero."
Paktiawal is the first Afghan national to die in ICE custody since 2008. ICE stated Paktiawal was arrested in a targeted enforcement operation after local arrests on charges of fraud and theft. Those cases had not been adjudicated at the time of his death, according to local officials.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Paktiawal entered the U.S. legally through the parole immigration policy, which allows officials to quickly admit immigrants on humanitarian grounds. But DHS said that status, which is temporary in nature, expired last August.
ICE detains people the government is seeking to deport, such as those accused of being in the U.S. illegally and other noncitizens determined to be deportable, including because of criminal offenses.
ICE detention facilities have long been criticized for providing inadequate medical care. In recent months, congressional Democrats have alleged human rights abuses, including medical neglect, in ICE detention, and demanded more oversight from the Department of Homeland Security. Multiple groups have filed lawsuits alleging inhumane conditions in ICE detention.
ICE has repeatedly denied reports of substandard conditions at its detention sites.
Some detainees who died last year complained to family members before their deaths that they were unable to obtain proper care.
Isidro Perez, who was 75 and had heart disease when he was arrested in Key Largo, Florida, last June, told his former partner he was having chest pains and wasn't getting his medication while in detention. ICE's report on Perez alleged a physician ordered his medication while in detention. Perez died on June 26, three weeks after he was detained.
Maksym Chernyak, a Ukrainian national who died in February 2025 of a stroke, told his wife and cellmate that he was refused immediate medical care and medication despite showing symptoms including heart palpitations and blood in his stool, according to Human Rights Watch.
ICE's own death reports also show instances of delayed care. Brayan Rayo-Garzon, a 27 year old from Colombia who died by suicide in April 2025, had a mental health appointment that was rescheduled twice. Before he had the appointment, he was found unresponsive in his cell. Leo Cruz Silva was 34 when he died by suicide last October, two days after ICE medical staff documented he was experiencing a mental health crisis.
Rayo-Garzon and Cruz Silva are among six detainees who died of apparent suicides since the start of 2025. Another detainee's death was ruled a homicide: ICE agents held 55-year old Campos Lunas down until he stopped breathing. An ICE report on his death stated guards were intervening to prevent him from harming himself.
ICE has long denied allegations that it provides inadequate medical care. With each death the agency announces, it states that "Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay."
"This is the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives," ICE wrote in multiple press releases.
But Naseer Paktiawal believes his brother would still be alive today had he not been arrested.
"I want the answer for his children, for my family, for this community," he said. "What happened to my brother?"
