Mexican migrant is 47th person to die in ICE custody during current administration
The Winn Correctional Center, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility, in Winnfield, Louisiana, US, on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (Wayan Barre/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WINN PARISH, La.) — A Mexican migrant died last week in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, according to an agency notification sent to lawmakers, becoming the 47th person to die in ICE detention during the second Trump administration.
Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, 49, died on April 11 at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana.
In the notification, ICE said that Cabrera was found unresponsive and was transported to a local medical center.
“Despite life-saving efforts, at approximately 8:51 a.m., an onsite physician at WPMC pronounced Cabrera deceased,” the agency said.
Clemente is the 15th Mexican national to die in ICE custody since the administration began its immigration crackdown in 2025.
Last month, Mexican diplomat Vanessa Calva Ruiz called the recent deaths part of “an alarming, unacceptable trend” since the administration took office.
“These deaths reveal systemic failures, operational deficiencies, and possible negligence,” she said in Los Angeles.
ICE said that Clemente had prior convictions for disorderly conduct, drug possession, and probation violation, as well as an arrest for domestic violence. ABC News could not independently confirm these claims.
The increase in ICE deaths has coincided with an unprecedented rise in federal immigration detention. The number of people being held recently climbed to a record 70,000, the highest level in the agency’s 23-year history.
According to an ABC News analysis of ICE data, the first 14 months of the current term have been the deadliest period at federal detention centers since the COVID-19 pandemic. ABC News’ analysis found the current death rate is 11 per 100,000 admissions, compared to 7 per 100,000 last year and just 1 per 100,000 in 2022.
In a previous statement, an ICE spokesperson said, “Consistent with data over the last decade, death rates in custody are 0.009% of the detained population. As bed space has rapidly expanded, we have maintained a higher standard of care than most prisons that hold U.S. citizens — including providing access to proper medical care. For many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives.”
“It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody. This includes medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care,” the statement said.
A rescue ski team makes their way to the area of an avalanche in the Castle Peak area of Truckee, Calif., February 17, 2026. (Nevada County Sheriff’s Office)
(NEVADA COUNTY, Calif.) — Eight backcountry skiers have been found dead, and one remains missing following an avalanche in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, officials announced Wednesday.
Search crews on Tuesday braved “highly dangerous” conditions to rescue six other skiers who were part of the same guided group, authorities said.
Crews were working on Wednesday to bring the remains of the eight dead skiers off the mountain to be reunited with their families after autopsies are performed to determine the cause of death, authorities said.
Perilous conditions near Donner Pass, where the avalanche occurred, continued on Wednesday morning. Rescuers faced a winter storm dumping more than 2 inches of snow an hour in the area, grounding rescue helicopters and hampering ground crews trying to reach the missing skiers, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center.
Tuesday’s avalanche was reported around 11:30 a.m. PT in the Castle Peak area at an elevation of 8,200 feet in the Sierra Nevada northwest of Lake Tahoe, according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office.
A group of 15 skiers, including four guides from the company Blackbird Mountain Guides, encountered the avalanche, according to the sheriff’s office.
“The group was in the process of returning to the trailhead at the conclusion of a three-day trip when the incident occurred,” Blackbird Mountain Guides said in a statement.
Preliminarily, the slide measured a D2.5 on the Destructive Force Scale, the avalanche version of the Enhanced Fujita Scale for rating tornadoes, meaning it was strong enough to injure, bury, or kill a person, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center. A D3 on the scale is strong enough to destroy a house.
Six people were successfully rescued Tuesday evening by search-and-rescue teams with varying injuries, authorities said. The survivors had been taking cover under a tarp when they were found alive, a source who communicated with the group told ABC News.
The survivors made a 911 call using an iPhone satellite SOS message, the sheriff’s officer said. Emergency beacons also helped rescuers find the stranded skiers, the sheriff’s office said.
“Due to extreme weather conditions, it took several hours for rescue personnel to safely reach the skiers and transport them to safety where they were medically evaluated by Truckee Fire,” the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “Two of the six skiers have been transported to a hospital for treatment.”
Authorities initially said 16 skiers were in the group, and 10 were missing.
Rescuers faced very difficult conditions, including avalanche danger themselves, according to Brandon Schwartz, director of the Sierra Avalanche Center, which forecasts avalanche conditions in the area around Lake Tahoe. The area saw 2 to 3 feet of new snow in the last 36 hours and more was still falling at 2 to 4 inches per hour, Schwartz told ABC News.
The Blackbird Mountain Guides said the avalanche happened near the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts in the Castle Peak area, northwest of Truckee.
The group of skiers had been staying at the huts — which the company describes in online advertisements as “luxury-dormitories” — since Sunday. A 3-to-4-day stay at the huts normally costs $1,795, according to the company’s website.
The company lists prerequisites for customers, including requiring skiers to be “adept with their backcountry touring skills and have a solid foundation of touring before the trip.” Customers are also required to be in good physical shape, according to the company, “able to hike 4-6 miles and climb 1,500-2,500 vertical feet throughout the course of a day.”
The Sierra Avalanche Center said there was “high” avalanche danger in the backcountry on Tuesday, raising questions of why the group was in the rugged area.
On Monday, Blackbird Mountain Guides posted a video on Instagram showing what it described as “atypical layering from our normal mid season snowpack.”
“The result is a particularly weak layer in many northerly aspects, across various elevation bands,” a company employee said in the video. “As we move into a large storm cycle this week, pay close attention to places where faceting has been particularly strong — avalanches could behave abnormally and hazards could last longer than normal.”
The Sierra Avalanche Center said rapidly accumulating snowfall, weak layers of existing snowpack and gale-force winds that blow and drift snow “have created dangerous avalanche conditions in the mountains.”
“Natural avalanches are likely, and human-triggered avalanches large enough to bury or injure people are very likely,” the center said.
The center has issued an avalanche warning for the Central Sierra Nevada Mountains between Yuba Pass on the north and Ebbetts Pass on the south, including the greater Lake Tahoe area, through Wednesday morning.
In an updated statement on Wednesday morning, the center said, “HIGH avalanche danger continues,” and added, “travel in, near, or below avalanche terrain not recommended.”
“Increased uncertainty exists with ongoing reactivity of these buried weak layers under this large storm snow load. The potential continues for large to very large avalanches occurring in the backcountry today.”
Whiteout conditions have been reported in the region where the avalanche occurred.
The California Highway Patrol’s Truckee office warned that high winds are “creating full whiteout conditions” across the Donner Summit.
Interstate 80 over Donner Summit was closed in both directions on Tuesday and remained closed on Wednesday morning due to whiteout conditions and poor visibility.
In these photos released by the University of South Florida Police Department, Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy are shown. (University of South Florida Police Department)
(TAMPA, Fla.) — The remains of one of the two missing University of South Florida doctoral students were discovered by investigators Friday and his roommate was taken into custody, authorities said.
Joseph Maurer, of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters that investigators found the remains of Zamil Limon on the Howard Frankland Bridge in Tampa Friday morning. Investigators have been searching for Limon and fellow USF doctoral student Nahida Bristy since they went missing on April 16.
“We are still actively searching for Nahida,” he told reporters during a news conference Friday.
Maurer said investigators received a 911 call for a domestic violence disturbance around 9 a.m. at a residence where Limon’s roommate, Hisham Abugharbieh, had barricaded himself.
Abugharbieh was previously interviewed by police during their investigation into the disappearances, Mauer said.
Following a brief standoff, the suspect surrendered, Maurer said.
Abugharbieh is being charged with several counts, including tampering with evidence, failure to report death and domestic violence, according to Maurer.
The cause of Limon’s death is being determined, Maurer said. He had no further details about Bristy’s condition.
Limon and Bristy, both 27, were last seen at separate locations in the Tampa area on April 16, according to the USF Police Department.
On Thursday, officials received new information to warrant upgrading their status from missing to endangered, which indicates they are at risk of physical injury or death, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said.
The sheriff did not provide any more details about the investigation or search efforts.
Limon and Bristy are friends, and a mutual acquaintance reported them missing, campus police said.
Limon, who was pursuing a degree in geography, environmental science and policy, was last seen at his Tampa residence at approximately 9 a.m. on April 16, according to police.
Bristy, who is studying chemical engineering, was last seen at the USF Tampa campus at the Natural & Environmental Sciences Building at approximately 10 a.m. that day, police said.
Anyone with information on her whereabouts is urged to call the University of South Florida Police Department at 813-974-2628.
-ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Across three hours of oral arguments on Friday, a panel of judges appeared skeptical of a legal challenge to the 10% global tariff imposed by President Donald Trump after the Supreme Court struck down his first round of tariffs earlier this year.
The lengthy hearing centered on whether a 1974 law gives President Trump the power to impose the tariffs for 150 days without approval from Congress, based on the United States’ trade deficit.
The suit was brought by 24 states as well as the toy company behind Care Bears and Lincoln Logs, and a spice importer.
Brian Marshall, arguing for the plaintiffs, told the panel of three judges on the Court of International Trade that the Trump administration is misusing the law that allowed tariffs to account for a “balance of payments deficit” — which he said experts unanimously believe is distinct from a “trade deficit.”
Judge Timothy C. Stanceu repeatedly pushed back on that claim, remarking that a “balance of payments deficit” could be created by a trade imbalance.
“In other words, a fundamental international payments problem cannot be something where the United States has to pay out a lot of money. It can also be something where there is an imbalance created by large trade surpluses in which case they wanted to let more imports in,” Judge Stanceu said.
The judges also appeared skeptical that the states suing the Trump administration had the legal standing to bring the case, though they appeared more receptive to the two small businesses that also challenged the tariffs: Basic Fun, a toy company, and Burlap and Barrel, which sells single-origin kitchen spices.
“I think there’s a distinction, for example, between some of the private party plaintiffs where they said, ‘We know we have X number of containers that are coming in within a certain period of time.’ I’m not sure that I see the same degree of clarity with regard to the state plaintiffs other than we buy stuff,” said Chief Judge Mark A. Barnett.
However, the judges also appeared to push back on some of the arguments from the Trump administration, including the claim that earlier litigation related to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — which the Supreme Court concluded does not give the president the right to impose tariffs — suggested that the 1974 law now in question gives Trump that power.
“This case has nothing like that. This case has a statute that expressly allows the imposition of tariffs or quotas. So we’re in a whole different universe now,” said Stanceu. “This one turns on balance of payments deficits, a term that was not involved in the IEEPA case.”
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate urged the court to affirm that the 1970s law gives Trump temporary tariff power, arguing Congress was clear in giving presidents broad latitude to address the deficits in question.
“The fundamental problem that exists today also existed in 1971, and that was the problem that Congress was trying to give presidents beyond President Nixon, the discretion to address by identifying balance of payments problems,” Shumate said.
The court did not signal when or how they might rule, though a decision is expected sometime in the coming months. Regardless of the ruling, tariffs are set to expire in July when the 150-day window expires.
According to the Yale Budget Lab, a nonpartisan policy research center, Trump’s tariffs — including the broad Section 122 tariffs, as well as metal and pharmaceutical tariffs imposed under different authorities — are estimated to cost every household between $760 and $940 if the Section 122 tariffs expire within 150 days. If Congress were to extend the tariffs, the price impact could be between $1,200 and $1,500 for each household.
