ATLANTA (Diya TV) — An Indian national who was being detained by federal immigration authorities in Atlanta died Tuesday at Grady Memorial Hospital, he is the second U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee to die in the state in as many days.
Atulkumar Babubhai Patel, 58, was pronounced dead at 1:20 p.m. Tuesday, according to ICE. The preliminary cause of his death, according to ICE officials, has been ruled to be complications from congestive heart failure.
Federal authorities are additionally currently investigating the death of a Panamanian national who was being held in an immigration detention center more than 100 miles southwest of Atlanta. Jean Jimenez-Joseph, 27, died after he was found unresponsive — with a sheet around his neck — in his solitary confinement cell at the Stewart Detention Center at 12:45 a.m. Monday, ICE said. He had been isolated for 19 days.
Patel arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on May 10 aboard a flight from Quito, Ecuador. According to ICE, he did not have the proper immigration documents, so he was placed in federal custody at the Atlanta City Detention Center. After receiving medical screening there, he was found to have high blood pressure and diabetes, officials said.
On Saturday, a nurse checking his blood sugar noticed he was short of breath, so he was transported to Grady, where he later died.
ICE has contacted Indian consular representatives, who have notified Patel’s next of kin. Patel is the eighth detainee to die in ICE custody in the fiscal year ending this September.
“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,” the federal agency said in a news release. “This agency’s comprehensive review will be conducted by ICE senior leadership to include Enforcement and Removal Operations, the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor.”
News of the two deaths comes as the Trump administration is looking to amp up immigration enforcement and deport many more people living in the U.S. without authorization. Patel and Jimenez are among more than 170 people who have died in U.S. immigration detention centers since 2003, according to Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement, or CIVIC, which wants to end immigration detention in this country.
ICE defended its practices.
