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The Guardian
10 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Ticking time bomb': Ice detainee dies in transit as experts say more deaths likely
A 68-year-old Mexican-born man has become the first Ice detainee in at least a decade to die while being transported from a local jail to a federal detention center, and experts have warned there will likely be more such deaths amid the current administration's 'mass deportation' push across the US. Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado's exact cause of death remains under investigation, according to Ice, but the Guardian's reporting reveals a confusing and at times contradictory series of events surrounding the incident. The death occurred as private companies with little to no oversight are increasingly tasked with transporting more immigration detainees across the US, in pursuit of the Trump administration's recently-announced target of arresting 3,000 people a day. 'The system is so loaded with people, exacerbating bad conditions – it's like a ticking time bomb,' said Amilcar Valencia, executive director of El Refugio, a Georgia-based organization that works with detainees at Stewart detention center and their families. Avellaneda Delgado lived most of the last 40 years in the US, raising a large family, working on tobacco and vegetable farms – and never gaining legal immigration status. He was arrested in Statenville, Georgia on 9 April due to a parole violation – and died on 5 May in the back of a van about half-way between the Lowndes county jail and Stewart detention center. His family say their search for answers has been frustrating, and have hired an attorney to help. Two of Avellaneda Delgado's six children who lived with their father told the Guardian he had no health conditions before being detained – but somehow was put in a wheelchair during the weeks he spent in jail, and was unable to speak during a family visit. The Guardian learned that he was given medications while in jail. 'Junior' Avellaneda, who bears his father's name and is the youngest, said he and his sister, Nayely, were rebuffed several times in their attempts to visit their father during the 25 days he was in jail, receiving emails that said only 'visit request denied'. Screenshots of the emails were shared with the Guardian. On 4 May, Junior finally was allowed a visit and drove the 30 minutes from the house where he lives with his father and Nayely, in Statenville. At the jail, he was shocked to see his father brought out in a wheelchair. 'My heart drops,' Junior said of the moment he saw Abelardo Sr. 'I'm thinking, 'What's he doing in the wheelchair?' Junior, 32, said he had never seen his father like that. The two sat facing each other, with a glass partition between them. 'I tried to get his attention and tapped on the glass. He was zoned out. At one point, he tried to stand up and fell back on his chair.' 'He didn't make eye contact with me and kept bobbing his head left and right,' he said. Junior asked a jail staffer accompanying Abelardo, Sr to hold the phone to his ear. 'I said, 'Dad, please answer me! Say something to me!' He just said, 'Hmmmm.' It broke me.' The staffer told Junior: 'We gave him his medication, that's probably why he's that way.' He thought, what medication? His father never took any medications at home, he said. Lowndes county jail's Capt Jason Clifton told the Guardian that Avellaneda Delgado was kept in the medical unit of the jail. Asked why, he referred to 'a note in the system that says he hadn't been eating enough, and didn't like the food'. 'I don't believe he was on any medications,' Clifton said. 'I don't see anything in the medical chart.' Told about Junior's account, the captain checked with the jail's nurse, who listed five medications being given to Avellaneda Delgado, two of which were for high blood pressure, plus an antibiotic. The morning after Junior's visit, the local jail handed Avellaneda Delgado over to Ice, for transport to Stewart detention center. Several hours later, Webster county coroner Steven D Hubbard was called to Weston, Georgia, where the van transporting Avellaneda Delgado had stopped on 5 May, after the driver called 911. A text summarizing the call sent by police to Hubbard said Avellaneda Delgado was 'unresponsive', with a blood pressure of 226/57. When the coroner arrived at the scene, he was already dead. The coroner told investigative reporter and immigration researcher Andrew Free he suspected that an aortic aneurysm was the cause of death. The Guardian heard a recording of the interview. Hubbard told the Guardian he doesn't know where the blood pressure reading cited in the text summarizing the 911 call came from – 'but if that was his blood pressure when he left Lowndes, he shouldn't have been going to Stewart. He should've been going to the hospital.' Avellaneda Delgado's family only learned of his death because the Mexican consulate in Atlanta called Nayely with the news – a pattern seen in most deaths under Ice custody, said Valencia, of El Refugio. 'You want to know what happened, but you face a system that is stopping access every step of the way,' he said. Ice's press release on the incident says the death is 'under investigation'. But Clifton and Hubbard both told the Guardian no one has contacted them, more than a month later. The family has learned there are at least two public agencies and three private companies that may have answers about what happened: Lowndes county and Ice; plus CoreCivic, which runs Stewart; CoreCivic's wholly-owned subsidiary TransCor, the company paid to transport detainees; and Southern Health Partners, the company paid to provide healthcare to detainees in Lowndes county jail. The Guardian asked Ice, TransCor and CoreCivic about the incident – including whether vans and buses transporting immigration detainees are equipped with cameras. Ice and TransCor did not respond. Ryan Gustin, senior director of public affairs for CoreCivic, said: 'At TransCor, the safety and security of the public, our staff, and those entrusted to our care are our highest priorities. To that end, we do not publicly disclose how the TransCor fleet is equipped, related to safety and security equipment.' Transportation of detainees is more under the control of private companies than in the past, said Katherine Culliton-González, chief policy counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. TransCor president Curtiss D Sullivan titled the company's 2025 first quarter outlook 'The Time for Growth is Now'. CoreCivic's TransCor is not the only company growing its transport business under Trump; the Geo Group, which runs 16 immigration detention centers across the country, also has a transportation subsidiary. Added to the privatization of services needed for Trump's mass immigration push is the decimation of agencies performing federal oversight of Ice – including the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Ciberties (CRCL) and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (Oido), said Culliton-González. In this setting, 'how can we hold private companies accountable?' she said. The issue of oversight will be increasingly important as more health issues and deaths follow the increasing number of detainees being transported around the country. 'Ice right now is all about more people coming in, and pushing them through [to deportation],' said Dora Schriro, a consultant on immigration and former Ice official. 'As input/output grows – not just in size, but in speed – the likelihood of making mistakes is going to increase,' Schriro said. 'Ice should make sure every person they take from law enforcement is fit for travel – for the length and conditions of being transported.' Avellaneda Delgado was the first Ice detainee in at least a decade to die while being transported from a local jail to a federal detention center, said Free, who also wrote about the case for ACPC, an Atlanta-based digital outlet. Meanwhile, Avellaneda Delgado's children just spent their first Father's Day without him. The day was doubly difficult for the youngest because it was also his birthday. Heavy rains kept the family from visiting Avellaneda Delgado's grave. 'It bothers me,' Junior said. Then he added: 'He was a great grandfather.'
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Yahoo
El Refugio provides haven for families of detainees at Stewart Detention Center
LUMPKIN – It's noon on a Saturday, and three El Refugio volunteers dance around each other in the kitchen, mashing fresh guacamole and frying tortillas over popping oil. The rooms of El Refugio, a hospitality house for families visiting loved ones detained at the ICE Stewart Detention Center, are empty outside the kitchen. Backpacks and suitcases are tucked into corners, left behind by about 10 visitors who stopped at the house before heading to Stewart. Male visitation hours start at 2 p.m. Most try to get in line by 12:30 p.m., scared to miss their chance to see their family members. El Refugio sits at 210 Main St. in Lumpkin. Staff photo: Lucille LanniganThis letter was never sent to Santiago Baten-Oxlaj who died from COVID-19 while detained at Stewart Detention Center. Staff photo: Lucille Lannigan The walls of El Refugio feature photographs of families who've visited the house for more than 15 years. Artworks by detainees and their children hang in clusters, depicting life at Stewart. In the entrance hall hangs a framed envelope made out to Santiago Baten-Oxlaj, a greeting from El Refugio Ministries. 'Recycle. Deceased' is written at the bottom. 'It's a letter that was never delivered,' Amilcar Valencia, El Refugio's executive director, said. Baten-Oxlaj, was one of four ICE detainees who died after testing positive for COVID-19 while in custody at Stewart Detention in front of Stewart Detention Center provide instructions in both Spanish and English. Staff photo: Lucille LanniganOver time, the center has gained the title of 'one of the deadliest' immigration detention centers in America. Along with COVID-19 deaths, multiple people have died by suicide while in custody. The center is located in the rural south Georgia town of Lumpkin, which has a population of about 900 and is known as the home of Providence Canyon State Park, one of Georgia's Seven Natural Wonders. Those detained behind the razor wire fences and cement walls come from all across the Southeast, and so do their families, who visit and try to find legal help on the outside. El Refugio was established in 2010 to provide a haven for those families. 'In Lumpkin, there's no resources, not much infrastructure,' Valencia said. 'If someone comes here from … North Carolina, it takes 10 hours to get to the detention center to see their loved ones, and then there's no place for them to stay.' El Refugio provides free shelter or a rest stop on weekends where families can eat a hot meal as they wait to visit their family members at Stewart. Access to information is limited at the detention center, so El Refugio offers resources and connections with attorneys and advocacy organizations. El Refugio collects shoes to donate to people at Stewart Detention rooms at El Refugio have multiple beds to accommodate Refugio also keeps clothes for people detained at Stewart. It started in a tiny, two-bedroom home but has since moved to a larger one – gifted by comedian Samantha Bee – centrally located in Lumpkin. Spacious rooms are fitted with beds, couches, toys and computers. At lunch time – between female and male visitation hours – the seats at a long dining table tend to fill with different families. They eat and exchange stories in Spanish. Valencia said El Refugio sees about 800 guests per year, usually about 15-20 per weekend. However, in the weeks after President Trump entered office, with promises to crack down on illegal immigration, Valencia said they've seen about 45 people each weekend. Stewart Detention Center's capacity is about 1,800 inmates. Valencia said he's consistently heard from families that the center's been at capacity since mid-February. El Refugio operates on the weekends with the help of volunteers who travel to stay at the house and visit the detention center. Sister Imelda Ngwitu travels from Blakely to Lumpkin. She prepares meals early in the day and then spends the afternoons visiting with people detained at Stewart. Sister Imelda Ngwitu cooks lunch to prepare for the arrival of families after visitation hours at Stewart Detention Center. Staff photo: Lucille Lannigan 'I listen to their stories,' she said. 'I encourage them to have hope and to trust that one day they'll be reunited with their families, to trust in God and things will be better. Ngwitu said her visits often start with tears, but by the end of the hourlong session, she's able to coax out a smile from people. She promises to pray for them. Detainees at Stewart can spend anywhere from 90 days to more than a year at the facility, meaning El Refugio has seen repeat visitors over the years.A family stands in front of the original El Refugio house. Staff photo: Lucille Lannigan One of these visitors is a 27-year-old woman from Stone Mountain, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive and private legal nature of her situation. Her husband was detained in February of 2024. She's traveled to Lumpkin to visit him nearly every weekend since. She and her husband met at a Taekwondo class, where he was a black belt instructor. He proposed with cake and flowers a year and a half into their relationship, in the breakroom of the company where they both worked. They didn't legally get married until he was detained at Stewart. In December of 2023, her husband received a letter stating he no longer had his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. The woman said this was a surprise. His papers weren't expired, and he had always been quick to start the renewal process months before they expired. The couple was in the midst of working with lawyers to figure out what happened. They had a wedding ceremony planned for the end of February 2024, but it would never happen. 'That day he was taking me to work, literally pulling out of the driveway at the first stop sign by the house, and they just came out of nowhere, surrounded the car, asked his name and just took him out and handcuffed him,' she said. He was served a warrant, and officers told her she'd receive a call from him. She was left alone to sit in the driveway and process what had happened. She called his family and then her own. It's been more than a year of visiting her husband, staring through a glass window and speaking over a phone in a room with five other families. There's no touching and no privacy. She said in the beginning, it was a quick process to sign in at of detainees at Stewart created art to describe what it's like to be separated from loved ones. This is the caption on one. Staff photo: Lucille Lannigan'Now, because of everything that's going on with Trump, they are overpopulated; there's more families coming to visit,' she said. 'I've had to wait five, six hours before just to see him for an hour and then head back home.' She tries to keep their conversations light, talking about her week. She distracts him with promises of a Disney World trip once he is released. A decision on her husband's case, whether he'll face deportation or remain in the U.S., was set to be made in February. She, his family and his friends all traveled to Lumpkin for the court hearing. 'The judge said, 'OK, at the end of this, I'm gonna give my response,'' she said. 'We all spoke. He took five minutes to make his decision. Right when he came back, there was no WiFi. The system was down.' The written decision was delayed until March 20. Life at Stewart Detention Center hasn't been easy for her husband. He's lost 100 pounds due to poor quality food. He's been prescribed antidepressants. She said some days he doesn't even get out of bed. He's witnessed fights over limited electronic tablets. He's watched detainees overdose on illegal substances that were snuck into the center. Valencia said there's an active campaign to close the detention center over human rights violations. Over the 15 years he's worked in Lumpkin, he said he's heard consistent reports of overcrowded rooms and a lack of appropriate medical attention, including mental health support. 'When they have emergencies, when they get sick or if they have medical conditions like diabetes, heart issues, respiratory problems … often, people don't get the medical attention that they need,' he said. At least 10 people have died at Stewart Detention Center from 2017 to May 2024. Life without her husband hasn't been easy for the El Refugio visitor either. She said she's struggled financially, unable to make payments on the home they share. She said El Refugio offers gas money cards, which have helped her to get home. She said she hopes people understand that Trump's deportation policies are hurting families. 'Most of the people that are getting deported are the fathers or the head of the household,' she said. 'It affects families drastically. We're struggling, and it's something many will never have to experience.'
