An immigrant detained at a sprawling Georgia detention center died Friday, local and federal officials confirmed, after the facility already faced national scrutiny for its response to an ongoing hunger strike inside.
The death inside the Dr. Ray James facility in Folkston, Ga., comes as federal immigration agents and private contractors allegedly threaten hunger strikers there with force-feeding them, a detained hunger striker, his wife, his lawyers and advocates all said this week. Detainees refuse to eat to protest prolonged captivity and poor conditions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed the death Saturday inside the facility, adjacent to the Folkston ICE processing center. Together, the two facilities form a large detention complex. GEO Group, the private prison company that manages the facilities under contract for the federal government, referred all questions to ICE.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), a state law enforcement agency, confirmed in an email that the local sheriff’s office had asked the GBI to conduct an “in-custody death investigation” at the D Ray facility, the Guardian can reveal. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), its umbrella agency, did not respond to requests for comment on the death or the hunger strike.
“This is a preventable tragedy,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director for Project South, a Georgia-based social justice organization. “We hold ICE and the private prison company fully responsible for any harm suffered by migrants at Folkston. We call for an immediate independent investigation into this tragic death and accountability. Folkston must be closed immediately.”
The man, Luis Sandoval, was 48 years old and from El Salvador, ICE said in its statement, adding that on Friday around 1:46 a.m., facility staff found Sandoval with a ligature around his neck. He was pronounced dead less than an hour later.
Sandoval was arrested by ICE officials earlier this month and transferred to the Folkston facility on October 8. In its news release, the agency said Sandoval had prior convictions for aggravated assault and other crimes, and his death was under investigation.
It was unclear Saturday whether Sandoval had participated in the hunger strike. The GBI said it could not share more details due to its active investigation.
Sandoval is the 60th person to die in ICE custody since the start of the second Trump administration, as ICE continues its aggressive crackdown on immigrants.
Austin Kocher, president of Relevant Research, which studies the immigration enforcement system and a researcher at American University, said that this year there has been an average of one death every 10 days in ICE custody. This figure includes people who died in detention centers or nearby hospitals while still in ICE custody.
“Even in the past there has not been such open dehumanization and open view that migrants’ lives are pointless,” Kocher added. “I fear that this tone (from the Trump administration) tends to neglect and view migrants as disposable. »
Tens of thousands of people have been arrested and detained by ICE, leading to prolonged detentions, as immigrants and asylum seekers press their case, and the agency has stepped up its offensive in recent months despite a less conspicuous presence on the streets.
One of the men currently detained in the Georgia detention center is Andrei Gerdiukov, a Russian asylum seeker who is participating in a hunger strike.
Nearly three weeks ago, Gerdiukov and dozens of others launched a hunger strike to demand that their court cases be processed more quickly by the U.S. immigration system and to protest the conditions of their detention. The hunger strikers were placed in solitary confinement, according to Gerdiukov and his lawyers.
“I feel tired, I feel dizzy. Every movement is hard,” Gerdiukov said in a telephone interview Saturday from his detention. “They threatened us by telling us that they were going to force-feed us. » He had heard about the death but did not know Sandoval.
Gerdiukov and his wife, Polina Chertushkina, came to the United States from Russia to seek asylum after being persecuted for their opposition to the war in Ukraine, Chertushkina said. Their cases are ongoing, but as the couple crossed through Florida last February, they were stopped and detained by immigration officials. Chertushkina was released, but Gerdiukov was taken to Folkston eight months ago.
“I’m so worried about him that I don’t know what to do,” Chertushkina said of the force-feeding threats, speaking Saturday by phone. Chertushkina asks lawmakers to help her husband.
At least 12 hunger strikers are still participating, despite threats of force-feeding, Gerdiukov said, adding that several had fainted.
On Friday, the hunger strikers were transferred to a nearby unit, where doctors “wearing combat boots” took their vital signs, raising fears of imminent force-feeding, Gerdiukov said.
It was unclear Saturday if and when authorities intended to resort to force-feeding.
The process of force-feeding hunger strikers is secret and court records are often sealed.
A judge must approve the procedure, then detention guards hold a hunger striker while medical staff push a tube down the nose and throat to pump nutritional fluid into the stomach. Medical ethicists and human rights organizations have called the practice torture.
ICE typically asserts in court filings that force-feeding is necessary to maintain “good order” in detention centers as well as to keep detainees alive.
Kocher denounced the contradictions.
“On the one hand, they’re trying to force-feed people (to keep them alive),” Kocher said. “And yet, at the same time, in this same facility (in Folkston), you have someone who died and may have successfully committed suicide.”
The Guardian has been tracking cases of force-feeding across the country. From January 2025 to August 2026, ICE asked the court for permission to force-feed at least 19 detained hunger strikers. An Afghan man was force-fed for almost six months. A Kurd was force-fed for almost eight months.
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