Key facts
- Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, a 45-year-old Venezuelan man, died on Monday morning while in ICE custody.
- His death is the 22nd recorded death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody this year.
- Arenas-Silva was arrested last Thursday and detained at the Irwin County Detention Center before being transferred.
- He was found unresponsive on a transport bus and later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
- ICE stated the suspected cause of death was cardiac arrest.
- The Irwin County Detention Center has faced scrutiny for past allegations of medical abuse.
Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, a 45-year-old Venezuelan man, died on Monday morning while being transferred between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in Georgia. Officials announced his death on Wednesday, marking the 22nd fatality in ICE custody this year.
Arenas-Silva was arrested last Thursday and had been detained at the Irwin County Detention Center, a privately operated facility. He was found unresponsive on a transport bus en route to the Folkston ICE Processing Center. ICE stated that the suspected cause of death was cardiac arrest. Staff called for medical assistance, and he was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Arenas-Silva entered the U.S. in 2021 and was ordered removed to Venezuela by an immigration judge in April. ICE officials arrested him last week during a targeted enforcement action in Dallas, Georgia.
His death occurs amid increased scrutiny of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) immigration enforcement tactics, following three other deaths in the past week. These include Lorenzo Salgado Araujo being shot and killed by an ICE official in Texas, Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero being shot and killed by ICE officials in Maine, and another man who died after being hit by a semi-truck while attempting to flee immigration officials.
The Irwin County Detention Center, where Arenas-Silva was held, resumed detaining immigrants last year after its contract with ICE was terminated in 2021 by the Biden administration. The termination followed whistleblowing about alleged medical abuse, including a 2022 Senate subcommittee report detailing excessive and unnecessary gynecological procedures on female detainees.
Another recent death in ICE custody was Adrian Andreas Florian, an 85-year-old German man, who died in a hospital in late June after being detained in Texas. The DHS has increased its detention capacity since last year, and ICE reported 33 detainee deaths in 2025, the highest total in over two decades.
Concerns about deaths in U.S. government immigration custody have prompted international attention, with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk calling for prompt, independent, and impartial investigations.