Venezuelan man dies in ICE custody in Georgia

Venezuelan national Jesús Manuel Arenas Silva’s health deteriorated aboard a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bus on Monday. He suffered a cardiac arrest while being transferred between two detention centers in Georgia. Emergency crews were unable to resuscitate him and he died at a hospital. He was 45. With his death, 54 migrants have now died in the agency’s custody since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, one of the highest totals recorded in the past decade, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

Arenas Silva was found unconscious at around 7:46 a.m. on Monday, shortly before the bus arrived at the ICE Processing Center in Folkston. Emergency services responded and took him to Irwin County Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead almost an hour later, the agency said.

Arenas Silva attempted to enter the United States irregularly in October 2021 but was intercepted by U.S. Border Patrol agents near Calexico, California. An immigration judge in Atlanta later ordered his deportation after he failed to appear at a hearing. ICE agents detained him on July 9 during an operation in Dallas, Georgia. “While in custody, Arenas Silva received medical care and was seen by medical professionals,” the agency said.

ICE has come under growing scrutiny in recent days after three migrants died in separate incidents involving immigration enforcement operations. In Biddeford, Maine, an immigration agent stopped Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian father, on a public street and fatally shot him. Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant, died as a result of gunshots fired by another ICE agent during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas. And on Tuesday, a 28-year-old man died after being struck by a tractor-trailer while fleeing immigration agents and other federal officers in Florida.

The previous case of a death in ICE custody was recorded on June 19. That day, Félix Alcorta Rodríguez, a 63-year-old Mexican national, was found unconscious at the Webb County Detention Center in Texas. Emergency responders transported him to Laredo Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead minutes later. According to ICE, the official cause of death is pending the results of an autopsy.

ICE’s count indicates that 22 people have died in its custody so far in 2026. January was the month with the highest number of reported deaths, with six cases, including two that occurred on the same day, January 14.

However, the situation appears more serious when examined from the start of Trump’s second term. A recent Human Rights Watch report warns that, during the 500 days between President Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, and June 4 of this year, 52 people died in ICE custody. Adding the subsequent deaths of Venezuelan national Jesús Manuel Arenas Silva and Mexican national Félix Alcorta Rodríguez brings the total to 54.

According to the organization, the death rate during this period is nearly four times higher than during the Joe Biden administration and more than two and a half times higher than during Trump’s first term. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, deaths in these circumstances did not reach such high levels. The report concludes that between January 2025 and January 2026, when the number of detained migrants reached a historic high of more than 71,000, the mortality rate also increased by 140%.

“The surge in deaths is much worse than what one would expect even considering the much higher number of people in detention,” Human Rights Watch said, attributing the increase to an aggressive campaign to expand the arrest and deportation of immigrants.

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