Former Principal Deputy Chief Immigration Judge Dan Weiss was featured as a guest columnist in the Austin American-Statesman about the death of 19-year-old Mexican migrant Royer Perez Jimenez in a Florida ICE detention facility, with officials citing suicide as the presumed cause of death.  

Mr. Weiss argues that this case highlights a broader systemic failure within ICE to provide necessary protections and accountability for individuals in custody.  

“Most Americans assume that when the government takes custody of a person, it also takes responsibility for that person’s safety, and that if it fails, there is a way to find out what happened and hold someone accountable,” he wrote “That assumption generally holds in state prisons and local jails. It does not hold in immigration detention.”.  

Read the full opinion piece in the Austin American-Statesman.