Venezuelan man becomes 22nd person to die in ICE custody this year

Detained immigrants play soccer behind a barbed wire fence at the Irwin county detention center in Ocilla, Georgia. in 2018. Photograph: Reade Levinson/Reuters View image in fullscreen Detained immigrants play soccer behind a barbed wire fence at the Irwin county detention center in Ocilla, Georgia. in 2018. Photograph: Reade Levinson/Reuters Venezuelan man becomes 22nd person to die in ICE custody this year Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, 45, found ‘unresponsive’ while being transferred between detention facilities in Georgia Another person has died in federal immigration custody this week in Georgia, officials announced on Wednesday, His is the 22nd death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody this year. Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, a 45-year-old Venezuelan man, died on Monday morning while being transferred between detention facilities in Georgia . In a press release, ICE said Arenas-Silva was arrested last Thursday and had been detained at the Irwin county detention center, a privately run facility in Georgia. He was being transferred to another ICE facility, the Folkston ICE processing center, when he was found “unresponsive” in a transport bus. ICE said the “suspected” cause of death was cardiac arrest. Arenas-Silva’s death comes as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, is facing renewed calls for accountability after three other people died in the past week during the department’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. White House overturns DHS halt to ICE traffic stops despite killings of two men Read more Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed by an ICE official in Texas. And this week, Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was shot and killed by ICE officials in Maine. On Tuesday morning, another man died during an ICE enforcement operation – as the man attempted to flee the immigration officials, he was hit by a semi-truck and died at the scene. Arenas-Silva entered the US in 2021 and “encountered” border patrol officials in California days later, the ICE press statement said. He was ordered removed to Venezuela by an immigration judge in Atlanta in April. ICE officials arrested him last week during a “targeted enforcement action” in Dallas, Georgia. After he was found unresponsive on the transport bus, while en route to the Folkston facility, staff called for medical assistance and transported him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The Irwin county detention center, where he had been held, began detaining immigrants again last year . The facility’s contract with ICE had been terminated in 2021 by the Biden administration, after a nurse working at the facility blew the whistle on alleged medical abuse. In 2020, the facility became known for allegations that women detained were subjected to non-consensual gynecological procedures. A Senate subcommittee on investigations investigation and report found in 2022 that “female detainees appear to have been subjected to excessive, inv