Eritrean imam dies in ICE custody as detainee deaths hit 20-year high

(RNS) — Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir, an Eritrean imam from Ohio and a 46-year-old green card holder, died while in immigration custody on Dec. 14 at a private detention facility in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Abdulkadir is one of four people who died while in immigration detention during a four-day period this month, raising alarm among advocates and some members of Congress about deteriorating conditions at immigrant detention facilities. 

“Imam Fouad’s death underscores the deadly consequences of a detention system that routinely fails to provide adequate medical care, transparency, and basic human dignity,” the Council on American Islamic Relations’ Ohio and Pennsylvania chapters said in a statement. 

The recent deaths bring the total number of detainees who have died to a two-decade high, with 30 deaths in ICE custody in 2025, the highest number since 2004, when 32 detainees died. 

Abdulkadir complained of chest pains prior to his death and received CPR after he was transported to a hospital, according to an ICE news release. The cause of death is under investigation.

“Imam Fouad’s death is not an isolated tragedy, it is the predictable outcome of a violent detention system that continues to cage people for profit and punishment,” wrote the Shutdown Detention Campaign, an advocacy group calling for the closing of detention centers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

RELATED: New Jersey religious activists call for investigation after ICE detainee’s death

Aerial view of the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, PA. (Image courtesy Google Earth)

Abdulkadir was held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center for 215 days awaiting a hearing before immigration court. His death comes after Chinese immigrant Chaofeng Ge was found hanging in a shower stall with his hands and legs tied behind his back in August at the same facility. Frankline Bate Okpu, an immigrant from Cameroon, also died at Moshannon Valley Processing Center in 2023. 

CAIR-Philadelphia executive director Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu called on Clearfield County Commissioners to shut down the detention center and to end their contracts with ICE and the private prison company GEO Group.

“It’s clear this facility is failing at its most basic duty: preserving human life,” Tekelioglu wrote in a Dec. 19 statement. 

In a statement reporting Abdulkadir’s death, ICE said it is “committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.”

Abdulkadir was the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Northeast Ohio from summer of 2014 to approximately May of 2016. 

Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir in a video from 2014. (Video screen grab)

While serving a 21-month sentence in a low-security federal prison for wire fraud, immigration enforcement officers issued a detainer for Abdulkadir and transferred him to Moshannon Valley Processing Center in July 2024, according to an ICE release. 

RELATED: ICE detains Imam of African mosque housing migrants, marking first NYC clergy arrest

Abdulkadir was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and was a citizen of Eritrea. Janazah, or funeral, prayers were held on Dec. 19 before his burial at Interment West Park Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, according to a post from Masjid Alomary. A Go FundMe for Abdulkadir’s funeral costs raised $13,000 as of Saturday. 

The other three detainees who died between Dec. 12 – 15 were Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian immigrant held at Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark; Nenko Stanev Gantchev, a 56-year-old Bulgarian immigrant who died at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan; Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, a 39-year-old Nicaraguan detainee in Natchez, Mississippi.