A Reformed Witness Mourning Deaths in Immigration Detention

They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied. In their greed they have gathered up many nations and swallowed many peoples. — Habakkuk 2:5b (NLT) 

The 220th General Assembly (2012) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) urges our church to take the following action: “to address the rapid growth of detention centers and the violation of human rights by overcrowding, poor medical service, lack of access to legal aid, and inhumane treatment …” 

As of May 4, 2026, at least 18 people have reportedly died in immigration detention this year. In 2025, 33 people died in custody, the highest number in more than two decades. More than 60,000 of our fellow human beings remain detained each day, often denied their basic rights. These facts tell the truth about a detention system built to profit from, exploit and discard lives that God has declared sacred. 

Scripture teaches us that every person is created in God’s image and therefore every life is sacred. The sanctity of life does not vanish behind concrete walls and locked doors. Yet the violence of immigration enforcement, including detention — the raids, the exercise of control, the number of those who come to harm, even death — depends on denying this truth. This denial turns humans into objects; people become units, neighbors become numbers and God’s children become mere bodies. When people are treated as objects rather than lives to be protected, death is no longer an accident; it is a foreseeable outcome of indifference and cruelty. With greater numbers of people detained, more people will die.  

The character of a society is revealed by whose lives it deems disposable and whose personhood it deems erasable. Throughout human history, the committing of atrocities has relied on the same movement: erasing personhood before destroying life. 

As a church called to witness to the God who is making things new and making things whole, and as those called to nourish the moral life of our nation, we recognize the humanity, the personhood, of each of those who died in custody. 

Numbers alone cannot convey the significance of this tragedy. Those who died in custody had names. They were known and loved. They woke in the morning with hopes, and they lay down at night with prayers and fears. Cages in detention centers constructed by cruel policy and sustained by political indifference robbed them of fully realizing their hopes, and their families of their love. Their lives mattered. Their deaths matter still.  

Life is sacred. The lives of those currently held in detention are sacred. The lives of those who will be taken into custody tomorrow are sacred. As faithful followers of Jesus Christ, we are urged to see and recognize their personhoods and the sacredness of their lives and to name the acts of violence and the systems that quietly allow their deaths. 

The refusal to do so is not merely a political choice; it is theological one. It is a rejection of the God who hears the cry of those suffering and who refuses to be claimed and used by those who shed blood while claiming moral authority. 

Our Reformed theological tradition teaches us that the root of human sin is idolatry. The idolatry of power, wealth, and even security is costly. Human lives — first their dignity, then their health and finally their breath — are the cost we pay as fellow human beings are dispossessed, dehumanized and viewed as expendable. Scripture urges the faithful to seek another way. 

We stand in solidarity with the families and loved ones of those who have died, and with all who stand with them. We choose to bear witness: to the truth, to the dead and to the God who will not forget them. We continue answering the call to be present where Jesus is present: with the poor, with the oppressed, with the suffering, with those who are in need of grace and mercy. As the prophet Isaiah says, “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore, the Lord will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice” (Isaiah 30:18). 

The National Immigration Project publishes the names of those who die in detention. We see this accounting as an act of Christian witness. In naming these individuals, we mourn the individual and collective loss of life. We continue to walk in solidarity and accompaniment with immigrant communities in resisting the normalizing of cruelty, violence and death. 

For an up-to-date listing, please visit the Detention Watch Network tracker. 

Geraldo Lunas Campos · Age 55 · Cuba · January 3, 2026 
Camp East Montana, Ft. Bliss, TX 

Luis Gustavo Nuñez Caceres · Age 42 · Honduras · January 5, 2026 
Joe Corley Processing Center, Conroe, TX 

Luis Beltrán Yañez-Cruz · Age 68 · Honduras · January 6, 2026 
Imperial Regional Detention Facility, Calexico, CA 

Parady La · Age 46 · Cambodia · January 9, 2026 
Detained in Pennsylvania 

Victor Manuel Díaz · Age 36 · Nicaragua · January 14, 2026 
Camp East Montana, El Paso, TX 

Heber Sánchez Domínguez · Age 34 · Mexico · January 14, 2026 
Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility, Lovejoy, GA 

Lorth Sim · Age 59 · Cambodia · February 16, 2026 
Miami Correctional Facility, Bunker Hill, IN 

Jairo García-Hernández · Age 27 · Guatemala · February 16, 2026 
Larkin Community Hospital Behavioral Health Center, Hollywood, FL 

Alberto Gutiérrez Reyes · Age 48 · Mexico · February 27, 2026 
Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Adelanto, CA 

Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi · Age 59 · Iran · March 1, 2026 
Louisiana ICE Processing Center, Angola, LA 

Emmanuel Cleeford Damas · Age 56 · Haiti · March 2, 2026 
Florence Correctional Center, Florence, AZ 

Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal · Age 41 · Afghanistan · March 14, 2026 
Dallas Field Office Holding Room, Dallas, TX 

Royer Pérez Jiménez · Age 19 · Mexico · March 16, 2026 
Glades County Detention Center, Moore Haven, FL 

José Guadalupe Ramos-Solano · Age 52 · Mexico · March 25, 2026 
Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Adelanto, CA 

Tuan Van Bui · Age 55 · Vietnam · April 1, 2026 
Miami Correctional Facility, Bunker Hill, IN 

Alejandro Cabrera Clemente · Age 49 · Mexico · April 11, 2026 
Winn Correctional Center, Winnfield, LA 

Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt · Age 27 · Cuba · April 12, 2026 
Federal Detention Center, Miami, FL 

Denny Adán González · Age 33 · Cuba · April 28, 2026 
Stewart Detention Center, Lumpkin, GA 

How to Respond 

The Office of Advocacy and Witness staff serve as steering committee members of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition (IIC). For more information about the reconciliation process and contacting your elected officials, please visit the IIC toolkit.

Rev. Jihyun Oh
Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Executive Director, Presbyterian Life & Witness