Guardian reporting reveals confusing and contradictory events surrounding death of Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado
A 68-year-old Mexican-born man has become the first Ice detainee in at least a decade to die while being transported from a local jail to a federal detention center, and experts have warned there will likely be more such deaths amid the current administration’s “mass deportation” push across the US.
Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado’s exact cause of death remains under investigation, according to Ice, but the Guardian’s reporting reveals a confusing and at times contradictory series of events surrounding the incident.
The death occurred as private companies with little to no oversight are increasingly tasked with transporting more immigration detainees across the US, in pursuit of the Trump administration’s recently-announced target of arresting 3,000 people a day.
“The system is so loaded with people, exacerbating bad conditions – it’s like a ticking time bomb,” said Amilcar Valencia, executive director of El Refugio, a Georgia-based organization that works with detainees at Stewart detention center and their families.
Avellaneda Delgado lived most of the last 40 years in the US, raising a large family, working on tobacco and vegetable farms – and never gaining legal immigration status. He was arrested in Statenville, Georgia on 9 April due to a parole violation – and died on 5 May in the back of a van about half-way between the Lowndes county jail and Stewart detention center.
His family say their search for answers has been frustrating, and have hired an attorney to help. Two of Avellaneda Delgado’s six children who lived with their father told the Guardian he had no health conditions before being detained – but somehow was put in a wheelchair during the weeks he spent in jail, and was unable to speak during a family visit. The Guardian learned that he was given medications while in jail.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/22/ice-detainee-death-georgia