Parady La was a husband, a father, a brother, and an uncle. He was loved.
And because of an administration where cruelty is the point, and because of neglect inside the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, he is dead.
He left his home on January 6 at around 10 a.m. His family later found his car keys still inside the house. He was disappeared into ICE custody. The following day, he was found unresponsive at approximately 2:38 p.m and was transferred to Jefferson hospital. On January 9th, at approximately 3:30 a.m., his family was notified that he had died.
At the same time an ICE officer shot and killed Nicole Good, Parady La was lying on the floor of a detention facility, writhing in pain. Two very different deaths, both a result of this administration’s immigration enforcement.
Multiple reports say he was screaming for help. Witnesses describe his vomiting, his distress, the sounds of a man suffering, sounds that would have been impossible for staff not to hear.
Substance withdrawal severe enough to cause death does not happen silently. A person experiencing it would show escalating distress for hours. Which means this was not sudden. And it was avoidable.
What failed Parady La was not a lack of policy. It was a lack of basic humanity and dignity. It was a series of choices to ignore, to delay, to dismiss – made while a man, a human being, begged for help.
He needed immediate medical intervention, which the facility was clearly unable to provide. He needed to be transferred to a hospital while treatment could still save his life, not after he was already brain dead.
The federal government has a constitutional duty not to be deliberately indifferent to the serious medical needs of people it detains. Withdrawal is widely recognized as a medical emergency. Detention facilities are required to screen for it, monitor symptoms, provide medication, and escalate care to a hospital when necessary. These requirements exist because unmanaged withdrawal kills people.
Yet none of these mandates protected Parady La.
READ: New Bucks County Sheriff Puts Community Safety First by Ending ICE ‘Task Force Model’ Partnership
Once again, the government’s public statements do not align with the accounts of witnesses – witnesses who were also taken from their families, who watched him suffer, who called out for help for a man they did not know. Many are now afraid to speak publicly, knowing that retaliation in detention can mean punishment, delayed release, or harm to their cases.
They did what any decent human being would do. They tried to get help. They are now left with the sounds and sights of his suffering, of his dying. When suffering is tolerated, or ignored, it sends a message to everyone watching.
Parady La’s death is not an isolated tragedy. It fits a documented pattern of deaths in federal immigration detention, deaths often followed by delayed disclosures, conflicting reports, and internal investigations that clear the very agencies responsible. Families are left without answers. Witnesses are silenced. And the public is asked to accept official statements that contradict logic and firsthand accounts.
In 2025, 32 people died in ICE custody. In just the first days of 2026, three more were killed by ICE. And now another has died in ICE custody.
All of this is the result of a lawless administration’s complete disregard for basic humanity. And people willing to comply with it.
Parady La was held in civil detention, a system that is supposed to exist for administrative purposes, not punishment. And yet punishment is exactly what it has become. People are incarcerated without conviction, denied adequate medical care, and subjected to deplorable conditions that are unacceptable.
Justice for Parady La must mean answering the questions for his family. It requires an independent investigation, full transparency, and real consequences for those whose negligence cost him his life. It means facing the reality that people are dying in a detention system where no one is held accountable.
Parady La was brought to this country as a toddler in 1982, a refugee whose family was from Cambodia and seeking safety. At the age of 46, he died at the hands of the government. A grieving family is left with more questions than answers. A community is left asking how his death made any of us safer.
Our government has lost its moral compass.
This is not normal. And no, we are not okay.
