Venezuelan Man Dies on ICE Transport Bus From Irwin County, GA — 22nd In-Custody Death of 2026

Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, 45, a Venezuelan national, was found unresponsive on an ICE transport bus moving him from Irwin County Detention Center (Ocilla, GA) to Folkston ICE Processing Center — four days after his arrest. His family alleges he was denied needed medication; the suspected cause is cardiac arrest. He is the 22nd person to die in ICE custody in 2026, as the agency’s mortality rate reaches its highest point in over a decade.

This continues a monthly cadence of in-custody deaths the timeline has tracked through 2026 — the 18th (2026-06-12–eighteenth-ice-detention-death-of-2026-denny-adan-gonzalez-deadliest-year) and 20th (2026-06-26–felix-alcorta-rodriguez-twentieth-ice-custody-death-2026) deaths both occurred within the preceding month, meaning two more deaths occurred in the three weeks between the 20th and this 22nd — a pace consistent with the doubling of the detention death rate Reuters documented in June (2026-06-17–reuters-ice-detention-death-rate-doubles-50-deaths-overcrowding-medical-failure).