President Donald Trump has endorsed a public proposal to rename Immigration and Customs Enforcement to "NICE" — short for "National Immigration and Customs Enforcement" — at the same moment a record number of migrants have died in the agency's custody.

The proposal began as a Sunday X post by conservative commentator Nick Sortor, who claimed the rebrand would force media outlets to refer to immigration officers as "NICE Agents." Trump replied on Truth Social: "GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT." According to the International Business Times UK, Trump tagged DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin in the endorsement, signaling clear support for the change.

Per NPR, at least 29 people have died in ICE custody since the start of fiscal year 2026 (October 1, 2025), already surpassing the 2004 toll of 28 deaths and setting a new annual record. Detention Watch Network advocacy director Setareh Ghandehari told Democracy Now the pace has hit roughly one death per week. "I have never seen anything like this," she said.

Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, at least 47 to 48 people have died in ICE custody. The 2025 calendar year toll alone reached 31 to 32, the highest single-year figure since 2004. The most recent reported death is Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, a 27-year-old Cuban national who died in Miami custody in what officials initially described as a presumed suicide.

DHS, in a statement to NPR, denied a spike and attributed the higher number to the larger detained population, putting the death rate at "0.009% of the detained population" as of April 16.

Detentions are up more than 70% under Trump compared to the first year of the Biden administration. Through April 4, 2026, ICE has carried out 234,236 removals in fiscal year 2026 — roughly 74% more than at the same point a year earlier. The number of people held in ICE detention rose from roughly 40,000 at the start of 2025 to 66,000 by early December, the highest level ever recorded. More than one in three people deported from detention in 2025 had no criminal record. ICE's stated goal, per its FY2026 budget justification: one million removals in a single fiscal year.

The administration has been rocked by enforcement controversies. On January 24, 2026, federal agents in Minneapolis pepper-sprayed, restrained, and shot to death Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old American ICU nurse who reportedly attempted to protect a woman shoved to the ground by agents during an enforcement operation. A second American citizen — a 37-year-old mother of three — was also fatally shot in a separate Minneapolis incident. Those killings led to Kristi Noem's removal as DHS Secretary in March 2026, with Mullin confirmed as her replacement on a 54-45 Senate vote.

The case of Geraldo Lunas Campos at Camp East Montana on Fort Bliss has drawn additional scrutiny: the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled his January 3 death a homicide, citing "asphyxia due to neck and torso compression." DHS has continued to assert he died by suicide.