Detainee Dies at Otay Mesa Detention Center; Person Unnamed

A person in ICE custody died on Oct. 24, 2026 at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego. The operator, CoreCivic, gave Daylight San Diego this account by email: a staff member found a detainee unresponsive a little after 11:30 a.m., staff attempted life-saving measures, and emergency medical professionals pronounced the person dead at the facility.

CoreCivic did not provide the person’s identity, gender or nationality and directed all other questions to ICE. As of Monday evening, ICE had not yet published information about the death in its news releases. This entry therefore binds to the operator’s account as relayed by San Diego outlets, not to an ICE notification, and the person stays unnamed until ICE names them.

San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Pro Tempore Paloma Aguirre, statement of Monday: “We don’t yet know their name.” She asked ICE and CoreCivic to reach the family, cooperate with an investigation and share findings with the family and the public. She pointed to what county public health staff found when they got inside after going to federal court: “tuberculosis cases no one told the County about, no vaccines in stock, and a man who had waited 18 months for a medical device.” That is the county’s characterization, not an adjudicated finding.

Daylight reports that the death would bring the known number of deaths this year in ICE custody to 30. That is a reporter’s count, not reconciled against canon’s own tally (2026-09-17–marchena-dies-winn-correctional-25th-ice-custody-death-2026).

DHS’s purchase of Otay Mesa from CoreCivic is in canon (2026-07-02–dhs-buys-corecivic-otay-mesa-california-city-1-5b-oversight-shield).

Open: ICE’s detainee death notification (name, age, nationality, cause); the medical examiner’s cause of death; reconciliation of the 2026 count.

Update (2026-10-27, publication date (ICE detainee death notification)): ICE posts its death notification for the Otay Mesa detainee: a 43-year-old man from Guatemala

ICE posted a detainee death notification on October 27, 2026. It names him as Roberto Jimenez Gutierrez, 43, from Guatemala, and says he “died Oct. 24 while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.” The notice gives a timeline of his last hour, says the death is under investigation and an autopsy will be done.