NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
A Cambodian man, Lorth Sim, is the seventh person to die in immigration agents’ custody.
The 59-year-old died in Indiana’s Miami Correctional Facility on Feb. 18. The circumstances surrounding his death are unclear, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents allegedly found him unresponsive in his cell. Agents allegedly performed lifesaving measures on him, but Sim died, anyway.
Sim came to the U.S. in 1983 as a refugee. He obtained permanent residency three years later. He was arrested three times between 1989 and 2005, with a judge ordering his deportation in 2006. In December 2025, ICE agents arrested Sim in Boston at what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said was a routine immigration check-in, and transferred him to ICE custody in Chicago.
Sim had diabetes, but it is unclear whether he received his medication in custody, or whether that condition contributed to his death.
Other outlets have reported that ICE agents have failed to give people imprisoned in ICE detention access to their medication and necessary medical attention.
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