A 37-year-old Mexican man died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on Tuesday September 10th, according to a source with knowledge of the matter (The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media).
The man had been in ICE custody since Sept. 3 at the McHenry County Adult Correctional Facility in Woodstock, Illinois. He died Tuesday at a hospital in the area. ICE officials had issued him a notice to appear in immigration court for deportation proceedings.
The death is the eighth in ICE custody this fiscal year.
An ICE spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Confirma SRE muerte de mexicano en custodia del ICE – https://t.co/3UspQg6jTG pic.twitter.com/889abNbJdA
— Pausa.Mx (@PausaMx) September 12, 2019
In August, the Trump administration transferred $116 million from other agencies within DHS, including $3.4 million in additional funds from FEMA, to ICE to pay for additional detention beds and transportation costs. ICE had been funded to detain an average of just over 42,000 people, but is expecting to reach an average daily population of 50,000 people by the end of the fiscal year in September. As of the end of August, ICE was detaining nearly 53,000 individuals in local and private jails across the country.
Advocates and experts believe the increase has been driven by the agency detaining individuals who could otherwise be released, while agency officials say an increase in border crossings has forced their hand.
In late July, a Mexican national died in ICE custody at a medical center in Columbus, Georgia, with staff there identifying his preliminary cause of death as cardio-pulmonary arrest. Secondary causes of death were listed as multi-organ system failure; endocarditis, or an infection of the inner linings of the heart; diluted cardiomyopathy, or a reduced ability by the heart to pump blood; and respiratory failure.
“ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases,” said ICE spokesperson Bryan Cox at the time. “Fatalities in ICE custody, statistically, are exceedingly rare and occur at a small fraction of the rate of the US detained population as a whole.”
