Green card holder from Dallas dies in ICE custody at Laredo detention facility

A 56-year-old Mexican-born Dallas resident who had lived in the United States as a lawful permanent resident for decades died over the weekend inside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Laredo, Texas, the seventh detainee death in a Texas ICE facility so far this year and the second this year at a Laredo detention site alone.

Emiliano Andrade-Covarrubias was found unresponsive in his assigned bed at the Rio Grande Processing Center at about 9:48 a.m. on Oct. 17, according to an ICE statement confirming his death. Security staff began lifesaving measures and called the Laredo Fire Department's emergency crews; he was pronounced dead at 10:10 a.m. The agency says an autopsy will determine the official cause of death, though a Webb County medical examiner's review completed Oct. 19 concluded it was a natural death, according to local television station KGNS.

What happened at the border crossing

Andrade-Covarrubias was returning to Texas from Mexico on June 26 when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers detained him at the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge port of entry in Laredo. According to ICE, he was a lawful permanent resident, but the agency contends his green card was obtained fraudulently because he failed to disclose a 2004 arrest for theft of property during the application review process. He was transferred into ICE custody pending removal proceedings and, according to the Texas Tribune, had an immigration court hearing scheduled for Nov. 2.

His daughter, Estefani Andrade, disputes the agency's account. She says her father disclosed his criminal record on the original application and that immigration officials approved the green card at the time with that disclosure on record. He had lived in Dallas for decades, working painting apartments and townhomes, and had three U.S.-born children. She said he had planned to eventually return to Mexico, where he was building a house.

A disputed account of his final days

Andrade-Covarrubias had a documented history of heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, conditions his family says were worsened by a 2021 bout of COVID-19. His daughter told reporters he carried medication with him when he was detained in June but that facility staff would not give it to him, and that when he later complained of coughing, chest tightness and trouble breathing, medical staff dismissed his concerns. ICE's own statement says he "received proper medical care" throughout his detention and that all detainees undergo medical screening within 12 hours of arrival, a full health assessment within 14 days, and have access to 24-hour emergency care. The agency's release states flatly that "at no time during detention is a detained alien denied emergency care."

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat whose district includes the facility, toured the dormitory where Andrade-Covarrubias died a day after the death. "I saw the dorm where he passed away," Cuellar said, according to KGNS. He said facility staff could not answer specific questions because the matter remained under investigation, and that he had submitted written questions of his own to ICE. Relaying an account from the man's spouse, Cuellar asked pointedly: "Was he a legal resident? If he was a legal resident, why was he in detention? That is not right." He added: "This is not somebody who they just came across and got picked up."

Part of a wider pattern

ICE's own public tally of detainee deaths, published on the agency's detainee-death reporting page, lists 24 deaths across ICE custody nationwide so far in the 2026 calendar year, part of 36 recorded since the start of the federal fiscal year in October 2025. Andrade-Covarrubias is not yet listed on that page, which the agency has said typically updates within two business days of a death being officially reported. He is, according to multiple news organizations tracking the figures, the seventh person to die in ICE custody in Texas in 2026 and the second this year at a detention facility in Laredo alone — Felix Alcorta-Rodriguez, 63, died at the nearby Webb County Detention Center on June 19.

The death also lands amid a broader legal fight over how aggressively federal border officers can treat returning green card holders. In June, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Blanche v. Lau that border officers do not need "clear and convincing evidence" that a returning lawful permanent resident committed a disqualifying offense before treating that person as an applicant for admission rather than someone with an established right to reenter. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissenting, warned the ruling gave the government "a massive blank check" and could let officers "classify returning green card holders as applicants for admission first and justify that decision later." The underlying statutory authority that allows CBP and ICE to treat a longtime permanent resident's past arrest as grounds for fraud findings and detention, as happened in Andrade-Covarrubias's case, traces to the same body of immigration law codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1227, which lists the grounds on which a lawful permanent resident can be found deportable.

What happens next

Mexico's Foreign Ministry has repeatedly demanded investigations after Mexican nationals died in ICE custody elsewhere this year, though it had not issued a public statement on this case as of Monday. ICE said it notified DHS's Office of Inspector General, the agency's own Office of Professional Responsibility, and the Mexican consulate through its Joint Intake Operation Center. Cuellar's office said it expects written answers from ICE, and the Webb County Medical Examiner's office is expected to issue a final, formal autopsy report in the coming weeks. Andrade-Covarrubias's family, through Rep. Cuellar's office, has asked for the release of the facility's medical records and any video from the dormitory where he died; none had been made public as of Monday evening.