Ossoff, Warnock Demand Trump Admin Answer for Record Deaths in ICE Custody
Ten people died in ICE custody in the first six months of the year.
Georgia senators are demanding information from the Trump administration on the record high number of deaths of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.)
Ten people in ICE custody died between January and June of this year — “the highest number of deaths in the first six months of any year listed in ICE’s public records,” Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock wrote in a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
According to ICE’s website, an additional three people died between July and August.
“We write with serious alarm regarding the rise in the number of deaths in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody nationwide,” the senators wrote.
“DHS must address safety and conditions within detention facilities in Georgia and across the country to prevent more deaths in its custody,” they continued.
The senators requested information on two people who died in ICE custody in Georgia this year — Abelardo Avellaneda-Delgado and Jesus Molina-Veya. On May 5, Avellaneda-Delgado died while he was being taken from the Lowndes County Jail to Stewart Detention Center by TransCor, a CoreCivic subsidiary contracted by ICE. His family has said he had no prior health conditions, the senators wrote. The following month, Molina-Veya, 45, was found in his cell at the Stewart Detention Center with a ligature around his neck.
ICE has also failed to follow its own guidance that requires the agency to publicly report deaths within 48 hours, the senators wrote.
In August, Ossoff’s office released the results of an investigation which revealed widespread abuse of pregnant people and children in ICE custody during the first six months of Trump’s second term. According to the senator’s investigation, pregnant women have been denied medical care and sufficient meals and snacks, and were made to sleep on the floor. A partner of one pregnant woman said she bled for days before she was finally taken to the hospital where “she was reportedly left in a room, alone, to miscarry without water or medical assistance, for over 24 hours.”
Human rights abuses in immigration jails predate the Trump administration. In 2022, Ossoff released the results of an investigation into Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia which revealed that women in ICE custody were subjected to “invasive, and often unnecessary gynecological procedures.” That year, the senators also demanded answers from DHS on reports that multiple women in ICE custody were sexually assaulted while detained at the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia.
Last year, a coalition of human rights groups released a report “documenting widespread abuse and inhumane treatment at nine immigration detention facilities across Louisiana,” including the use of five-point shackles, prolonged solitary confinement, cockroach-infested food and denial of prescribed medications for epilepsy and diabetes.