Chinese immigrant Chaofeng Ge has died, after being abducted by Donald Trump’s fascist ‘ICE’ (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) militia, in circumstances that go far beyond suspicious – yet has been ruled by the authorities as suicide, forcing his family to sue the US government in an attempt to get justice.

Chaofeng Ge

Chaofeng Ge was found hanged in his cell in what is known as the ‘hogtie’ position – hands tied behind the body and roped to his feet. Mr Ge died in August, just five days after his abduction, but the official ICE report on his death was released this month. His brother Yanfeng Ge said that he was devastated by Chaofeng’s death and wanted answers and justice:

I am devasted by the loss of my brother and by the knowledge that he was suffering so greatly in that detention center. He did not deserve to be treated that way. I want justice for my brother, answers as to how this could have happened, and accountability for those responsible for his death.

I don’t know how he could have had the opportunity to take his own life. What drove him to do so? But at least these things should not happen to people who are in the government’s custody.

The family’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, filed earlier this month in New York’s Southern District, argues that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE unlawfully withheld records concerning Chaofeng Ge’s detention and medical treatment and information on suicide-prevention protocols, incident reporting and staff communications.

An FOIA request was filed on 9 September but the agencies did not respond within the period required by law. The lawsuit aims to force DHS and ICE to release body-camera footage, surveillance video, medical and mental health records, interpreter logs, staff reports and any other relevant materials.

ICE: deadly operations

Chaofeng Ge is not the only person to have died at the hands of ICE.

As of last month, at least twenty people have died in ICE custody since Donald Trump’s inauguration – more than in all of the previous four years combined. ICE ‘officers’, often masked and refusing to show ID, have also abducted thousands of people off the streets and in raids on apartments and blocks. More than 150,000, including US citizens – many of them children and at least one of them a child with cancer – have been deported.

The Canary’s Joe Glenton says of Chaofeng Ge and others that ICE and Border patrol have been terrorising migrant communities since Trump returned to power in January 2025. Trump has made his personal war on immigration a centerpiece of his rule. ICE have increasingly operated like a personal fascist militia in this regard.

In October, the Canary reported how ICE weren’t hitting Trump’s 3,000 per day arrest quotas. As a result, ICE leadership was replaced in part by Border Patrol, who are seen as more aggressive.

As deaths mount, it is clear violence and killing are acceptable to the US regime. ICE aren’t just a means to an end. They’re an expression of the racist ‘posse’ mentality which has always animated the settler state. That some lives like Chaofeng Ge’s are expendable is a foundational principle of American national ideology. Trump is simply enacting that impulse openly.

Additional reporting by Joe Glenton

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

This post was originally published on Canary.