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Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva was at home in Georgia with his family on July 9 when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents came to arrest him. Sonimar Maria, Arenas-Silva’s sister, said her family implored the agents not to take the 45-year-old Venezuelan, mentioning his medical needs, but ICE did not listen to their pleas.

Flanked by progressive House Democrats and speaking in Spanish to reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference on July 22, Sonimar said ICE agents also ignored her family’s request to let Arenas-Silva take his medication with him. Arenas-Silva required four different medications for a medical condition, Sonimar said, but ICE allowed him to bring only one to the remote Irwin County Detention Center in rural Georgia.

“Jesús Manuel later told me on a phone call that ICE did not give him the medication he needed,” Sonimar said in a translated statement. “He went without medication during his detention until he tragically died in ICE custody on July 13 … I am 100 percent certain that he did not receive proper care.”

Arenas-Silva died while being transferred from Irwin County Detention Center to the Folkston ICE Processing Center, a roughly 100-mile drive. He was found unresponsive five days after he was arrested, according to ICE. At least 53 people have died in ICE custody since President Donald Trump returned to office and launched a mass deportation campaign led by adviser Stephen Miller, making the past fiscal year the deadliest in the agency’s history.

Additionally, at least 30 people have been shot in public or in their homes by federal immigration agents during Trump’s chaotic crackdown, and 11 have died, including multiple parents and two United States citizens. Sonimar is calling for an independent investigation into her brother’s death, but the Trump administration has consistently erected barriers to accountability for both the deadly shootings and the deaths in ICE jails.

Public Rage Against ICE Sends Democrats Scrambling for a Response

“He was a loving son, brother, and uncle, a caring and hard-working man who came to this country to seek better opportunities,” Sonimar said of Arenas-Silva, adding that she came to Washington, D.C. to seek justice for her brother so that other families do not have to endure similar trauma.

Some Democrats are pushing for structural changes to put an end to the violence enacted by ICE, which has been emboldened under policies set by Trump and Miller. At a House Judiciary Oversight Subcommittee hearing on conditions in ICE jails on July 22, Democrats slammed the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress for spending billions of dollars to build immigrant jails and recruit poorly trained federal immigration agents while slashing funding for health care and food assistance.

Progressive House Democrats are going a step further than simply questioning ICE’s tactics and bloated budget. They propose abolishing the agency altogether and redirecting its funding to safety-net programs that can help people navigate a spiraling affordability crisis.

“Americans are demanding members of Congress pursue more than training,........

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