Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced its second coronavirus-related death of a detainee.
The agency reported Santiago Baten-Oxla, a 34-year-old Guatemalan man, who was held in the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., was pronounced dead on Sunday.
ICE issued a press release on Monday stating the man died at a nearby hospital, where he had been hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms since April 17. ICE confirmed his death was related to COVID-19 complications, making him the second person in ICE custody to die of the disease.
“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. “Fatalities in ICE custody, statistically, are exceedingly rare and occur at a fraction of the national average for the U.S. detained population.”
ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division arrested Baten-Oxlaj in Marietta, Ga. on March 2 following his conviction of driving under the influence. Later that month, an immigration judge granted him voluntary departure back to his home country of Guatemala. He was awaiting departure from the U.S. before his death.
A Salvadoran national, Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia, was the first person in ICE custody to die from coronavirus on May 6. He had been detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego before his death.
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