Man detained by ICE at Stewart Detention Center dies in Columbus hospital
A Mexican man detained by ICE at Stewart Detention Facility in Lumpkin died Wednesday afternoon at Piedmont Midtown Medical Center in Columbus.
Pedro Arriago-Santoya, 44, complained to staff at Stewart about abdominal pain on July 20. He was examined by a nurse and transferred to Southwest Georgia Regional Hospital in Cuthbert immediately after, according to an ICE news release.
On July 21, he was transferred to Piedmont for surgery consultation due to suspected gall bladder disease. The next morning, Arriago-Santoya reportedly went into cardiac arrest. An AED (Automated External Defibrillator) restored his oxygen and pulse, and he was placed on a ventilator.
He was moved to ICU where he remained on mechanical ventilation and comatose, the release said.
Around 2:40 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, officials say Arriago-Santoya went into cardiac arrest once again, and could not be revived through CPR. He was pronounced dead at 3:10 p.m.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and ICE Office of Professional Responsibility have been notified about his death. Mexican officials have been unable to locate Arriago-Santoya’s next of kin, ICE said in the release.
According to the release, Arriago-Santoya was detained by ICE on April 24 in Appling County after he was released from police custody following a March 30 arrest for public drunkenness and probation violations stemming from a May 2015 disorderly conduct conviction in Chatham County.
On June 6, a federal immigration judge ordered for him to be deported to Mexico. He was in ICE custody awaiting removal, according to the release.
Arriago-Santoya is the seventh person to pass away in ICE custody in the 2019 fiscal year, according to the release.
In 2016, the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. justice system, called Stewart’s adjoining immigration court “America’s toughest,” as only 2% of the men facing deportation here won their cases in the 2015 fiscal year, and just 5% of seekers were granted asylum. In 2018, Stewart’s court still granted asylum to few seekers — less than the country’s median grant rate of 11%, according to Department of Justice statistics.
Allegations about the treatment of detainees at Stewart and another Georgia facility, Irwin, have received international attention. A 2017 report published by Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic documents conditions of the facilities through interviews with immigrants and the attorneys who represent them.
The report alleges several issues at Stewart, including poor housing conditions, understaffed medical units, disciplinary segregation and food with “foreign objects, such as hair, plastic, bugs, rocks, a tooth, and mice.”
Ledger-Enquirer archives were used in this report.
This story was originally published July 25, 2019 at 4:50 PM.
