An immigrant detained at a sprawling detention center complex in Georgia died Friday, local and federal officials confirmed, after the facility already faced national scrutiny over its response to an ongoing hunger strike inside. The death inside the D Ray James Center in Folkston, Georgia, comes as federal immigration officials and private contractors allegedly threaten hunger strikers there with force-feeding, a detained hunger striker, his wife, attorneys and advocates said this week. Detainees refuse to eat in protest of prolonged captivity and poor conditions. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday confirmed the death inside the facility, adjacent to the ICE processing center in Folkston. Together, both facilities make up 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 requested that the GBI conduct a “death in custody investigation” at the D Ray facility, The Guardian can reveal. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), its coordinating agency, did not respond to requests for comment about the death or the hunger strike. “This was 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 corporation fully responsible for any harm immigrants suffer at Folkston. We call for an immediate independent investigation into this tragic death and accountability. Folkston must be closed immediately.” 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 that his death was under investigation. It was unknown Saturday whether Sandoval had participated in the hunger strike. The GBI said it could not share further 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 anti-immigrant crackdown. Austin Kocher, president of Relevant Research, which studies the immigration enforcement system, and who is a researcher at American University, said that this year, there has been an average of one death every 10 days in ICE custody. That figure includes people who die in detention centers or nearby hospitals while still in ICE custody. “Even in the past, there hasn’t been such an overt dehumanization and such an overt view that immigrant lives are expendable,” Kocher added. “I am concerned that that tone [from the Trump administration] has a tendency toward neglect and seeing immigrants as disposable.” Tens of thousands of people have been arrested and detained by ICE, leading to prolonged detentions, as immigrants and asylum seekers fight their cases, and the agency has been ramping up its offensive in recent months despite a less conspicuous presence on the streets. One man currently in the Georgia detention center is Andrei Gerdiukov, a Russian asylum seeker participating in the hunger strike. Nearly three weeks ago, Gerdiukov and dozens of others went on a hunger strike to demand that their legal cases be processed more quickly through the US immigration system and to protest the conditions of their confinement. The hunger strikers were placed in solitary confinement, according to Gerdiukov and his lawyers. Every move is difficult,” Gerdiukov said in a telephone interview Saturday since his arrest. “They threatened 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 facing persecution for their opposition to the war in Ukraine, Chertushkina said. Their cases are ongoing, but as the couple was driving through Florida in February, immigration officials stopped them and detained them. Chertushkina was released, but Gerdiukov was brought to Folkston eight months ago. At least 12 hunger strikers are still participating, despite threats of force-feeding, Gerdiukov said. Friday, the hunger strikers were moved to a nearby unit, where medical officials “in combat boots” took their vital signs, raising fears of imminent force-feeding, Gerdiukov said. The process for force-feeding hunger strikers is secret, and court records are often sealed. A judge has to approve the procedure, and then detention guards restrain the hunger striker while medical staff push a tube up the nose and. throat to pump nutritious liquid into the stomach. Medical ethicists and human rights organizations have called this practice torture. ICE generally says in court documents that force-feeding is necessary to maintain “good order” in detention centers, as well as to keep detainees alive. Kocher denounced the contradictions. [to keep them alive]”said Kocher. “And yet, at the same time, in that same [Folkston] “The Guardian has been following force-feeding cases across the country. From January 2025 to August 2026, ICE sought court permission to force-feed at least 19 hunger-striking detainees. One Afghan man was force-fed for nearly six months. A Kurdish man was force-fed for nearly eight months.
