Oppression and resistance: the DHS Diaries
PWS weekly on ICE, Border Patrol, and the brave communities , organizations, and individuals resisting their fascist policies
DHS is killing people at historic rates, and lying about it
According to the official data, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) killed more people in the last year than in any year since the agency was created, either during operations or while detainees were held in their custody.
The true numbers, however, are much higher. DHS is even deadlier than they let on.
Internal reports state that 56 people have died in ICE detention since US President Donald Trump took office. A total of 55 people died in ICE custody during Trump’s entire first term, making 2025 four times deadlier than any previous year.
Those totals, however, exclude detainees who died while being apprehended or in the care of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Official numbers from both agencies over the last year have also omitted incidents in which a suspect was killed, and included false DHS reports about migrants who died under suspicious circumstances.
For example, Lunas Campo died of asphyxiation while in ICE custody in January. ICE initially ruled the death a result of “medical distress” in a Jan. 9 press release. The death was later ruled a homicide by medical examiners.
And the rate of deaths is increasing. In January and February, six people died in as many weeks at the same Texas detention center. Lawyers representing detainees call it an “unprecedented humanitarian crisis” in the region.
Deaths have also occurred indirectly from DHS actions, such as the death of a blind Rohingya refugee last week in Buffalo, NY.
DHS initially detained Nurul Amin Shah Alam after responding to a call from neighbors who spotted him wandering their neighborhood. After realizing they had no basis to deport him, DHS released him five miles from his home.
Shah Alam, who was legally blind and did not speak English, needed a walking stick and died trying to make his way back to his house in the frigid Buffalo winter.
He wandered the streets of Buffalo for six days before dying Tuesday night on a sidewalk downtown.
Mutual aid continues helping those affected by DHS surge
Though the Trump administration claims that the surge in Minneapolis has come to an end, DHS operations are still ongoing in the city. The financial fallout of those operations as thousands avoid work or shopping for fear of detention has been devastating.
But there is a silver lining to the cloud: mutual aid networks in the city that were built in previous years, and expanded considerably since Trump assumed office, are helping to support thousands of people.
The city government now estimates 76,000 residents — or about 20% of the city’s population — have urgent needs in terms of lost wages, food insecurity and an inability to make rent, among other things.
Most of the mutual aid networks are informal, and there are too many to list or count. Some of the larger official orgs have raised tens of millions of dollars.
Minneapolis has provided a blueprint not merely for direct resistance of authoritarian tactics employed by DHS, they have also shown the nation how to support those most terrified of those operations.
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The Round-Up
Despite an ongoing “shutdown” over disputes over DHS funding, all personnel are now being paid in full. The shutdown was already doing next to nothing in regards to DHS operations, but some inessential employees were experiencing delayed payments. With new workarounds, Congressional oversight over DHS is effectively nonexistent.
One of the reasons the shutdown doesn’t matter, is that DHS is so well funded it doesn’t even know what to do with all the money it has. Eight months after Congress approved roughly $191 billion in spending, DHS has an estimated $150 billion left to spend, according to a new analysis provided first to MS NOW by FWD.us, a group that studies immigration policy and advocates for reforms.
State prosecutors in Minnesota are investigating DHS officers over more than a dozen alleged criminal acts. State prosecutors say the investigations include alleged criminal actions by former “Commander at Large” Greg Bovino.
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