Three Korean nationals have died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, and two of the deaths were ruled suicides, according to records compiled by the American Immigration Lawyers Association and Department of Homeland Security data. The cases span from 2005 to 2020 and have drawn renewed attention as more Koreans are being arrested and detained amid stepped-up immigration enforcement.[1][2]
The most recent case involved Ahn Choung-woong, a 74-year-old South Korean national who died on May 17, 2020, at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, California. ICE records list his nationality as Korean and his cause of death as suicide.[2][7][17]
According to reports cited by AILA and related court records, Ahn had been held since February 2020 after serving a prison sentence and was facing deportation. He had diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and his lawyers repeatedly asked for his release during the COVID-19 outbreak, but those requests were denied.[1][8][17]
The other two deaths were a Korean man born in 1954 who died by suicide in 2005 at a detention facility in Passaic County, New Jersey, and a Korean woman born in 1948 who died in September 2006 at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New Mexico after being transferred to a nearby hospital for treatment of pancreatic cancer.[1][2] AILA said ICE is supposed to release initial information on detention deaths and then prepare a follow-up report, and it has raised broader concerns about medical and mental health care in detention facilities.[1]
