Crime & Justice · Sep 29, 2026ICE Watch: His mom was detained by ICE. Two months later, he died by suicide

ICE Watch & Accountability · Daily Update · Published September 29, 2026, 8:43 AM CDT · Updated 2:15 PM CT

Where These Stories Happened

Detention & Deaths

His mom was detained by ICE. Two months later, he died by suicide

In May, Samuel Gonzalez Terrones was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia. He started therapy and medication, hoping to quiet the dark thoughts.^[1]

A month later, his mother was gone.

Minerva Terrones Dominguez, 54, had just stepped off a bus on her way to a grocery store in San Bernardino when immigration agents arrested her. According to her lawyer, she had lived in the U.S. for 33 years and had never been arrested or in removal proceedings.^[1]

She was the one who calmed Samuel when the bad thoughts came. “My mom was the one who would take care of him,” his older sister, Sari Gonzalez, told the Los Angeles Times.^[1]

With his siblings and father working extra shifts to pay for a lawyer, Samuel spent more and more time alone at the family’s home in Rialto, California. On Sundays, the family drove to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center to visit her. Samuel was visibly happy on the drive there, Sari said. On the way home, they all cried.^[1]

The lawyer had a plan to keep Minerva in the country for good. It depended on showing that her deportation would cause extreme hardship to a U.S. citizen: Samuel. They never got to file it.^[1]

Samuel died on August 12. He was 21.^[1]

“To the ICE agent who took away my mother: I hope it was worth it.”

From a letter Samuel wrote, shared with the Los Angeles Times by his family^[1]

His sister was given 10 minutes in a visitation room to tell their mother. The officer watching wouldn’t let Sari hug her mother while she cried, she said.^[1]

Three days later, on August 31, a federal judge ordered Minerva released. The judge didn’t know about Samuel’s death. U.S. District Judge Brianna Fuller Mircheff found that Minerva had been held illegally “based solely on DHS’s mistake.” She rejected the government’s suggestion that Minerva wait four more months for a bond hearing: “It is beyond cruel,” she wrote.^[1]

Minerva is still in deportation proceedings. Without Samuel, she no longer qualifies for the relief her lawyers had built her case around. The family buried him on September 22 at Rialto Park Cemetery.^[1]

ICE did not respond to the Times’ requests for comment.^[1]

Federal judge orders immediate release of Massachusetts detainee, accuses ICE of repeated misrepresentations

A federal judge has ordered the immediate release of Eleandro Almeida De Souza, finding that immigration authorities failed to prove he was a flight risk.

The court had already directed his release in a docket order so his detention would not continue while the written decision was prepared. De Souza entered the United States in September 2019 and was released on an order of recognizance. ICE took him into custody around Aug. 14, 2026.^[2]

Courts & Lawsuits

Habeas corpus petition frees South Florida man after 8 months in ICE detention, federal judge rules

A South Florida man is back with his wife after spending eight months in immigration detention, following a federal judge's order that he be immediately released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Cellphone video captured the emotional moment 51-year-old Marlon Cervelo reunited with his wife, Judith Castellanos, for the first time in eight months. "I feel so happy," Castellanos said. Cervelo was detained in Florida but ultimately released in Texas.^[3]

Court officials say they didn't know ICE agents were at Otero County courthouse; county has yet to respond

ALAMOGORDO — Officials with the Twelfth Judicial District say they had no advance knowledge that federal immigration agents were on courthouse grounds on Sept. 22, when masked men who identified themselves as ICE agents detained a man moments after a judge dismissed the criminal case against him.

The man's name has not been released. Audrey Hukari, chief clerk and court executive officer for the Twelfth Judicial District and Magistrate Courts, responded to a request for comment sent Sunday to District Judge Angie Schneider and the court clerk's office.^[4]

Hukari said the court "can not comment on specific cases," but that court staff "were not aware of federal immigration agents being present on September 22nd."
— as reported by 2nd Life Media Alamogordo Town News

Raids & Arrests

ICE Launches New 'Public Safety Surge' Just Days After Agents Reportedly Left US Citizen Bloodied

DHS has not said how many agents will be deployed or when the operation will end, while critics point to recent encounters involving civilians and migrants The Department of Homeland Security said on Saturday that ICE had launched a 'nationwide public safety surge' across 11 states and Washington, DC.

The announcement followed an encounter in a Chicago suburb in which immigration agents reportedly mistook a US citizen for a fugitive and left him injured and bloodied beside a road. For context, local police and a resident who stopped to help described the Chicago incident, according to the account provided for this report. Illinois, where the encounter took place, is among the jurisdictions named in the new operation.^[5]

ICE detained this Austin mother's husband on his way to work. Their story is one of many.

In the last few months, Yesenia Santiago's biggest fear was to wake up and learn that her husband, Lucas, had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Her fear came true on Sept. 21, when she woke up to a text message from Lucas asking her to recover his van. When she went to get it, she saw coffee in the cupholders and a pack of cookies spilled on the floor.^[6]

“It looked like workers going to work, eating their morning breakfast, their morning coffee,” she recalled.
— as reported by KUT

Oversight & Policy

How Trump’s immigration crackdown harms children—including US citizens

This story was originally published by The 19th.

President Donald Trump has revived a policy change from his first term that gives immigration agents broad authority to deny green cards and visas to applicants who have received public benefits—or whose families have. The change to what’s known as the public charge rule took effect on Sept. 18. Trump’s first-term attempt to change the public charge rule was blocked by federal courts.^[7]

ICE deports Haitian pastor previously spared removal

First entered the US illegally in 2016, ordered to leave in 2018 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have deported Haitian Pastor Molis Augustave to Haiti after officials previously spared him from removal by taking him off a flight at the last minute.

The immigrant rights group We Are CASA announced Thursday that Augustave had been sent back after weeks of dispute over his status, FOX43 reported. The group said 19 days had passed between his arrest and his deportation. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected his application for permanent residency, known as a green card, last week.^[8]

Primary Records

Check the government’s own records directly:

• ICE detainee death reporting (ICE’s own notices)
• DHS Office of Inspector General reports
• ICE online detainee locator

References

1. Los Angeles Times. His mom was detained by ICE. Two months later, he died by suicide. ↩
2. Fall River Reporter. Federal judge orders immediate release of Massachusetts detainee, accuses ICE of repeated misrepresentations. ↩
3. CBS News. Habeas corpus petition frees South Florida man after 8 months in ICE detention, federal judge rules. ↩
4. 2nd Life Media Alamogordo Town News. Court officials say they didn't know ICE agents were at Otero County courthouse; county has yet to respond. ↩
5. International Business Times UK. ICE Launches New 'Public Safety Surge' Just Days After Agents Reportedly Left US Citizen Bloodied. ↩
6. KUT. ICE detained this Austin mother's husband on his way to work. Their story is one of many.. ↩
7. dailykos.com. How Trump’s immigration crackdown harms children—including US citizens. ↩
8. christianpost.com. ICE deports Haitian pastor previously spared removal. ↩

Methodology: ICE Watch & Accountability is compiled daily by scripts/ice_watch.py from named news reports published in the previous 36 hours. Passages in bold and in quotation blocks are verbatim from the cited report; nothing is paraphrased or generated by AI. Stories are grouped by keyword into sections, and a story already covered on Kemetic Minds in the past three days is skipped.

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