Venezuelan man under deportation order dies of cardiac arrest during transfer between Georgia ICE facilities

Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, a 45-year-old Venezuelan man, died Monday morning while being transferred between immigration detention facilities in Georgia, The Guardian reported. He was found unresponsive on a transport bus from the Irwin County Detention Center to the Folkston ICE Processing Center. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stated the suspected cause was cardiac arrest.

Arenas-Silva had been arrested last Thursday during a targeted enforcement action in Dallas, Georgia. He entered the United States in 2021, encountered border patrol officials in California days later, and was ordered removed to Venezuela by an immigration judge in Atlanta in April. His death marks the 22nd in ICE custody this year.

His sister and Georgia immigrants’ rights groups said ICE did not provide necessary medications during detention despite family requests. Arenas-Silva called his sister from custody to report that officials withheld the medication he needed. “I am 100% certain that he did not receive proper care,” his sister stated.

The Irwin County Detention Center, a privately run facility, resumed holding immigrants last year after its contract ended in 2021. A 2022 Senate subcommittee report found female detainees there had been subjected to excessive and often unnecessary gynecological procedures.

The death follows three others in the past week during ICE operations, including shootings in Texas and Maine and one man struck by a semi-truck while fleeing.

ICE reported 33 detainee deaths in 2025, the highest total in more than two decades.