Detainee Dies at Georgia Immigration Center as Hunger Strikers Allege Force-Feeding Threats
An immigrant detained at a sprawling detention center complex in Georgia has died, local and federal officials confirmed on Saturday. The facility had already faced national scrutiny for its response to an ongoing hunger strike inside, and the death came in the middle of that controversy.
The man was Luis Sandoval, 48, from El Salvador. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in its statement that at about 1:46 a.m. on Friday, facility staff found Sandoval with a ligature around his neck. He was pronounced dead less than an hour later.
The death occurred at the D Ray James facility in Folkston, which sits adjacent to the Folkston ICE processing center; together the two facilities make up a large detention complex. GEO Group, the private prison company that runs the facilities under contract for the federal government, referred all questions to ICE.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) confirmed in an email that the local sheriff's office had requested it conduct an 'in-custody death investigation' at the D Ray facility. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, its umbrella agency, did not respond to requests for comment about the death or the hunger strike.
In its press release, ICE said Sandoval was arrested by ICE officials earlier this month and transferred to the Folkston facility on 8 October. The agency said Sandoval had prior convictions for aggravated assault and other crimes, and that his death was under investigation.
It was unknown on Saturday whether Sandoval had participated in the hunger strike. The GBI said it could not share more details because of its active investigation.
Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director for Project South, a Georgia-based social justice organization, called the death preventable. 'This was a preventable tragedy,' she said. 'We hold ICE and the private prison corporation fully responsible for any harm that migrants suffer at Folkston. We call for an immediate independent investigation into this tragic death and for accountability. Folkston must be shut down immediately.'
The numbers give the incident a wider context. Sandoval is the 60th person to die in ICE custody since the start of the second Trump administration. Austin Kocher, president of Relevant Research, which studies the immigration enforcement system, and a research fellow at American University, said there has been an average of one death every 10 days in ICE custody this year — counting people who died in detention centers or in nearby hospitals while still in ICE custody.
Kocher added that even in the past there had not been such an overt dehumanization and view that migrants' lives are expendable. He said he worries that the administration's tone has a tendency towards neglect and towards viewing migrants as disposable.
Behind the death lies the center's ongoing hunger strike. Andrei Gerdiukov, a Russian asylum seeker, and dozens of others launched the strike nearly three weeks ago, demanding that their legal cases be processed more quickly through the US immigration system and protesting the conditions of their confinement. According to Gerdiukov and attorneys, the hunger strikers were placed in solitary confinement.
Speaking by phone from detention on Saturday, Gerdiukov said: 'I feel tired, I feel dizzy. Every move, it is hard.' He said officials had threatened to force-feed them. He had heard about the death but did not know Sandoval.
Gerdiukov's wife, Polina Chertushkina, said the couple came to the US from Russia to seek asylum after facing persecution for their opposition to the war in Ukraine. Their cases are ongoing. This February, while driving through Florida, they were pulled over and detained; Chertushkina was released, but Gerdiukov was taken to Folkston, where he has been held for eight months. 'I am so worried about him, I don't know what to do,' she said about the force-feeding threats, asking lawmakers to assist her husband.
Gerdiukov said at least 12 hunger strikers are still participating despite the threats, and several had been fainting. On Friday, the strikers were moved to a nearby unit, where medical officials 'wearing combat boots' took their vital signs, raising fears of imminent force-feeding. It was not clear on Saturday whether or when the authorities intended to use force-feeding.
The process of force-feeding hunger strikers is secretive, with court records often sealed. A judge has to approve the procedure, after which detention guards restrain the striker while medical staff push tubing up the nose and down the throat to pump nutritional liquid into the stomach. Medical ethicists and human rights organizations have called the practice torture. ICE generally says in court filings that force-feeding is necessary to maintain 'good order' in detention centers as well as to keep detainees alive.
Kocher pointed to the contradiction: on the one hand, authorities try to force-feed people to keep them alive; on the other, in that same Folkston facility, a man died and possibly was able to kill himself.
According to tracking by The Guardian, from January 2025 through August 2026 ICE sought court permission to force-feed at least 19 detained hunger strikers. One Afghan man was force-fed for nearly six months, and a Kurdish man for nearly eight months.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people have been arrested and detained by ICE amid its aggressive immigration crackdown, leading to prolonged detention as immigrants and asylum seekers fight their cases. The agency has been stepping up its offensive in recent months despite a less visible presence on the streets.
Attention now turns to the outcome of the GBI investigation and the future of the hunger strike at Folkston. The official cause of Sandoval's death, and whether authorities move to force-feed the strikers, will remain at the center of the debate in the coming days.
