A Cuban Man Has Become The Sixth Immigrant To Die In ICE Custody Since October

The agency is now close to eclipsing the eight immigrant deaths in its custody during the entire 2019 fiscal year.

A 63-year-old Cuban man died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at a hospital in Florida on Monday — the second death since Saturday and the sixth since October, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The agency is close to eclipsing the eight immigrant detainee deaths in its custody during the entire 2019 fiscal year. The man’s cause of death has been preliminarily identified as cardiac arrest, according to the source.

ICE officials confirmed the death on Tuesday, but did not identify pending notification of his family. They added that the man was pronounced dead early Monday at the Larkin Community Hospital in Miami, where he had been since Jan. 23.

ICE had arrested the man on Jan. 14 after he was convicted of theft and sentenced to 15 days in jail in Miami. The man had arrived in 1980, but four years later, ICE officials said he was was convicted on felony heroin charges and aggravated assault with a weapon in Mercer County Superior Court in Trenton, New Jersey, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The man had a final order of deportation issued against him in July 2000, according to ICE.

Earlier on Monday, BuzzFeed News reported that a 39-year-old man who was identified as Ben James Owen died in ICE custody on Saturday. He died at the Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny, Florida, and officials said that the preliminary cause of death appeared to be “self-inflicted strangulation,” although the case remains under investigation, according to ICE.

ICE officials said Owen, who had entered the country on a temporary visa in July, had been arrested by the Port Orange Police Department on suspicion of felony aggravated stalking, felony false imprisonment, domestic assault, and violating the conditions of his pre-trial release. ICE officials arrested him after he was released from criminal custody on Jan. 15. He was then placed into deportation proceedings.

“ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases,” ICE said in a statement.

Officials have long said that the agency is dedicated to providing timely and comprehensive medical care to immigrants in its custody, noting that they have access to a daily sick call and 24-hour emergency care. The agency has publicized that it spends more than $269 million each year on health care services.

In December, the House Oversight and Reform Committee announced it had opened an investigation into the medical care of immigrant detainees in the wake of a BuzzFeed News story that revealed a series of allegations of substandard care from a whistleblower.

BuzzFeed News first reported the memo and documented how it contained reports of detainees being given incorrect medication and suffering from delays in treating withdrawal symptoms, as well as one who was allowed to become so mentally unstable he lacerated his own penis and required surgery.

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