BREAKING NEWS Canadian dies in ICE jail after being arrested for staying in country illegally
A Canadian immigrant has died in the custody of ICE while awaiting removal from the US.
Johnny Noviello, 49, died on Monday afternoon while in custody in Miami, Florida. His cause of death is under investigation.
Noviello was undergoing removal proceedings when he was found unresponsive. Medical staff attempted to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead shortly after.
According to ICE, Noviello entered the US in 1988 and formally became a lawful permanent resident in 1991.
But in 2023, he was convicted of racketeering and drug trafficking - which revoked his legal migrant status. He was meant to leave the country but didn't, so was arrested in May as part of an ICE round-up.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Canadian dies in ICE detention after immigration arrest
Noviello was undergoing removal proceedings when he was found unresponsive. Medical staff attempted to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead shortly after. According to ICE, Noviello entered the US in 1988 and formally became a lawful permanent resident in 1991. But in 2023, he was convicted of racketeering and drug trafficking - which revoked his legal migrant status. He was meant to leave the country but didn't, so was arrested in May as part of an ICE round-up. ICE said he was convicted for trafficking Oxycodone, as well the unlawful use of a two-way communication device to facilitate commission of crime . He was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October of 2023. Volusia County corrections data shows he was released in February of last year. Last month ICE had arrested Noviello at a Florida probation office and issued a notice to appear and charged with removability. They said this was due to Noviello 'having been convicted of a violation of (or a conspiracy or attempt to violate) any law or regulation of a State, the United States, or a foreign country, relating to a controlled substance'. An ICE statement added: 'Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay.' They added that officials in Canada had been informed of Noviello's death. According to Volusia County Corrections, he had also previously been booked into prison on charges relating to the sale of oxycodone and trafficking the drug in 2017. Federal agents raided a used car lot in Daytona Beach in November of 2017 and said they found drugs being sold inside the business. Noviello and his father Angelo were arrested and charged with the sale of thousands of painkillers. The DEA said at the time that the two had trafficked nearly 2,000 methadone, hydromorphone and morphine tablets. They also found over 11,000 oxycodone pills. According to court records seen by the Daily Mail, the two men pleaded guilty to the charges. The DEA said that buyers would walk into the business and exchange money for the pills. In April of this year a Chinese woman detained at the US-Mexico border died by [self-murder] while in the custody of ICE . The woman, 52, had been taken into custody for overstaying a visitor visa before. She died in a facility in Yuma, Arizona. Also in April, Haitian woman Marie Ange Blaise, 44, died after over 10 weeks in ICE custody. In a statement at the time, ICE said they stopped Blaise at an airport in the Virgin Islands as she tried to return to North Carolina. They said she didn't have a valid immigrant visa.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
US citizen arrested during Ice raid in what family describes as ‘kidnapping'
A US citizen was arrested during an immigration raid in downtown Los Angeles this week in what her family described as a 'kidnapping' by federal immigration agents. Andrea Velez, 32, had just been dropped off at work by her mother and sister, the pair said, when they saw agents grab her. 'My mom looked at the rear mirror and she saw how my sister was attacked from the back,' Estrella Rosas told ABC7. 'She was like: 'They're kidnapping your sister.'' Velez, a graduate of Cal Poly Pomona, was taken into custody during an immigration raid on Tuesday. In video captured from the scene, agents can be seen surrounding her as a crowd gathers in the street and police officers stand by. Meanwhile, Rosas and her mother, who has residency but is not a citizen, screamed from a nearby vehicle for help. 'She's a US citizen,' Rosas said through tears. 'They're taking her. Help her, someone.' In other video, an agent can be seen lifting Velez off the ground and carrying her away. Witnesses told media, including CBS Los Angeles, that the agents never asked Velez for identification, and that she did nothing wrong. 'The only thing wrong with her … was the color of her skin,' Velez's mother, Margarita Flores, told CBS Los Angeles. The incident comes as numerous US citizens have been swept up in the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrants. People have reported they are being targeted for their skin color and for attempting to aid immigrants being detained by immigration agents. While it's not yet clear how many citizens have been affected by the administration's attack on immigrant communities, a government report found that between 2015 and 2020, Ice erroneously deported at least 70 US citizens, arrested 674 and detained 121. Velez's family was unaware of her whereabouts for more than a day until attorneys for the family tracked her down. 'It took us four hours to find her and we're attorneys. That's crazy,' attorney Dominique Boubion told ABC7. 'Just to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you have the full weight of the federal government against you and your family can't find you – it is very scary.' Authorities have not told lawyers what charges Velez faces, but an official with the Department of Homeland Security told media that she was arrested for assaulting an Ice officer. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Fears of sleeper cells prompt over 100 Iranian arrests by ICE
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 130 Iranian nationals over the past week, as the escalation between Israel and Iran has led to fears from the Trump administration of sleeper cells. President Donald Trump has even warned there could be Iranian terrorist sleeper cells plotting against Americans, as a failing of his predecessor Joe Biden, whom he said 'let in a lot' from Iran specifically. ICE now has 670 Iran nationals in detention as Washington worries about potential retaliation for Trump's strikes on nuclear facilities in Tehran. One of the men in ICE custody served the Iranian military as a sniper in the past four years. The arrests come as it's been revealed at least 1,500 Iranians entered the US during the Biden years. Of the 1,504 who were apprehended by immigration officials, 729 were allowed to stay in America by the Democrat administration. Fox News reported that the many of the detainees have a criminal record including domestic violence, as well as drug and weapon offenses. The Trump administration claims its yet another indictment of the failed Biden border policy. 'I think one thing that's really concerning about that: One, they weren't doing any really meaningful vetting in the last administration,' former acting ICE Director Jonathan Fahey told Fox. 'The second part of it is, you know, we have probably 2 million known gotaways come through the last administration, and the people that went through the non-ports of entry, we knew they went through but nobody caught them, so we have no idea who went through,' he continued. 'Gotaways' are illegal immigrants who Border Patrol agents know crossed the border but were unable to apprehend. Since they were not stopped, there is no way of knowing where they're from or where they went. Trump's 'border czar' Tom Homan called it 'the biggest national security vulnerability we've ever seen.' Fears of terrorist sleeper cells attacking citizens in the US is not unfounded, Homan explained, based on what was found at the border. 'Do we know where everyone of the two million (gotaways) are, no. We don't know who they all are, why they're here or where they came from,' he stated. 'Border Patrol intelligence in the last four years they found prayer mats at the border. They found identification of people from Iran, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Syria. So we know that some terrorists have crossed that border. We'd be a fool to think zero crossed.' At least half of them were allowed to stay in the US, despite citizens of Iran being considered special interest aliens due to the possibility of being security threats. The apprehensions have taken place since Sunday in sweeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation, amid growing warnings about potential terrorist 'sleeper cells' targeting the US. Major US cities are on high alert, after security officials warned there could be attacks on banking systems, energy grids and cyber attacks. Data obtained by the conservative-leaning outlet shows an upward trend of allowing the Middle Easterners in, with 48 stopped at the border in 2021, 197 detained in 2022 462 in 2023 and 797 the last year Biden was in office. The numbers include Iranians who entered the country through the southern and northern borders and were encountered by the US Border Patrol. More than 10 million people from around the world poured into America while former President Joe Biden was in power. However, the true number of Iranians now in the States could be much higher, as at least 2 million so called 'gotaways' came across the border during the Biden administration . The presence of Iranians in the US is under scrutiny as Iranian officials have promised to retaliate against the U.S. Rhetoric out of the Middle East has escalated with a popular TV personality threatening that up to 50,000 American soldiers will be returned to Washington in coffins.
