ICE detainee dies at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego
Private prison company CoreCivic confirmed that someone in its custody died on Oct. 24 in one of the housing units.
Written by Kate Morrissey, Edited by Lauren J. Mapp
This story was updated at 2:45 p.m. on Oct. 27, 2026 with information from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Author's note: This is a breaking news story and may be updated as more information becomes available.
A person in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement died Saturday at Otay Mesa Detention Center.
Private prison company CoreCivic, which operates the detention facility, confirmed the death via email to Daylight San Diego on Monday.
On Tuesday afternoon, Immigration and Customs Enforcement identified the man as 43-year-old Roberto Jimenez Gutierrez from Guatemala.
According to the agency, the man had been in its custody since Oct. 9, just over two weeks before his death, after officers arrested him in Escondido. It said that he was in an “assigned safety cell” when he died.
The agency accused him of having a July 2024 conviction for selling liquor to a minor as well as several arrests that don't appear to include convictions. Daylight San Diego was unable to locate criminal records for anyone with his name in San Diego County court records, and ICE did not immediately respond to questions about where the conviction and arrests happened.
The agency said that an immigration judge had ordered Jimenez Gutierrez deported to Mexico in 2006. It's not clear why the judge ordered a Guatemalan man deported to Mexico, and ICE did not immediately respond to a question asking for clarification.
“Jimenez’s death is under investigation,” the agency said. “An autopsy will be conducted to determine the official cause and manner of death.”
According to CoreCivic, which did not provide a named spokesperson, a staff member found the man unresponsive in one of the housing units a little after 11:30 a.m. The company said that staff attempted life-saving measures on him and called emergency medical services for help. It said emergency medical professionals pronounced the person dead at the facility.
ICE published information about the death in its news releases, where it typically first reports information about those who died in its custody. The most recent death listed on the site prior to Jimenez Gutierrez happened at a facility in Georgia on Friday.
The death at Otay Mesa would bring the known number of deaths this year in ICE custody to 30. In 2025, a total of 33 people died in ICE custody, the highest number on record.
