The 56-year-old Mexican man, who died Saturday while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was a legal permanent resident in the country, the agency said in a statement a day after the Texas Tribune reported his death.
Emiliano Andrade-Covarrubias, 56, was found unresponsive in his bed at the Rio Grande treatment center Saturday morning. ICE said staff performed chest compressions and called emergency services, but he was pronounced dead about 20 minutes after he was found unconscious. He had been in immigration detention since June.
ICE said Monday that Andrade-Covarrubias’ cause of death was still unknown because the autopsy was still pending with the Webb County Medical Examiner. The agency also said he received appropriate medical care and was seen by medical professionals.
In the release, ICE said Andrade-Covarrubias was returning to Texas from Mexico at a port of entry in Laredo when immigration agents arrested him on June 26. ICE added that he was arrested because agents believed he obtained his legal status in the United States fraudulently because he failed to disclose a 2004 theft arrest during the review process.
The agency also sought to deport him, saying he was the subject of removal proceedings before an immigration judge. Andrade-Covarrubias was scheduled to appear at an immigration court hearing on Nov. 2, according to online records.
Andrade-Covarrubias’ daughter, Estefani Andrade, told the Tribune that her father brought up his criminal record during the application process — and that immigration officials approved his green card application.
Andrade-Covarrubias lived for decades in Dallas, where he raised three children, all born in the United States. He painted apartments and townhouses for a living, and his daughter said he planned to return to Mexico. He often traveled to Mexico because he was building a house there, she added.
Her father suffered from heart disease, she said, as well as diabetes and high blood pressure. He had medication with him when he was detained, but she said center staff would not “give him his medication.”
When he said he was feeling sick and coughing, she said her family was particularly concerned because he had been hospitalized with COVID-19 in 2021 and the illness had lasting consequences on his health. He sought help from the facility’s medical staff, but was told “they would just ignore him.”
She said her father told her that medical staff at the center dismissed his concerns, even when he told them he was having trouble breathing and feeling tightness in his chest.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, told the Tribune that he inspected the detention center Sunday and interviewed staff about the facility’s medical procedures, but could not provide specific details about Andrade-Covarrubias’ case because her death was still under investigation. The Democrat said he sent written questions to ICE seeking more information about the case.
“Any death in federal custody is a serious matter and we need to know what happened,” Cuellar said in a statement released Monday.
Andrade-Covarrubias is the seventh person to die while in ICE custody in Texas this year — the first being Geraldo Lunas Campos, whose death was ruled a homicide by the El Paso medical examiner’s office in January.
Andrade-Covarrubias is also the second to die in an ICE facility in Laredo this year. Felix Alcorta-Rodriguez, a 63-year-old Mexican man held at the Webb County Detention Center, died June 19 after being found unresponsive, according to the agency.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry are authorized to prevent people with legal permanent residence — commonly known as green card holders — from re-entering the United States if they have a history of arrests or criminal convictions.
In an opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that immigration officers at ports of entry do not need “clear and convincing evidence that a lawful permanent resident has committed a crime involving moral turpitude.” Immigration officials would be allowed to stop the person from re-entering the country, but an immigration judge would have the final say on whether that person would be stripped of their green card and ordered deported.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing that the court’s opinion undermines “the benefits and security associated with holding a green card.” She also wrote that she feared the court “handed the government a huge blank check” to place legal permanent residents in “immigration limbo.”
