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Georgia Democrats have not done enough to acknowledge ICE detention victims

U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff should not have voted for the Laken Riley Act, because the law is hurting and killing people without criminal convictions.
Jesus Manuel Arenas-Silva’s nephew, Manuel, observes his late uncle’s photo at a Sept. 12, 2026, vigil at Vinings Lake Church in Mableton. Arenas-Silva died in an ICE detention center. (Courtesy of Gabriela Henriquez Stoikow)
Jesus Manuel Arenas-Silva’s nephew, Manuel, observes his late uncle’s photo at a Sept. 12, 2026, vigil at Vinings Lake Church in Mableton. Arenas-Silva died in an ICE detention center. (Courtesy of Gabriela Henriquez Stoikow)
AJC
By Andres Carrillo – For The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Seven people have died in Georgia U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers since Georgia U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff voted to pass the Laken Riley Act. Their complicity in the Trump administration’s clear nativist ambitions of mass deportations was a betrayal to every one of their immigrant and diasporic constituents. And we must demand better from them.

The Laken Riley Act set the parameters for the escalation in ICE enforcement we’re seeing now. Rhetorically, having Democratic elected officials capitulate to Republican framing on immigration, and voting for the controversial bill, signaled to the Trump administration they had free rein to do whatever they wanted. And it signaled to the Democratic base that their leadership would not stand up for them.

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Policy wise, the act expanded mandatory detention qualifiers. Mandatory detention means that once detained, an immigrant must spend the full length of their legal proceedings in detention and are not allowed bond.

In the past, mandatory detention required that an immigrant must have been convicted of a crime. Now, a simple charge will do. This means about 70% of people sitting in detention centers have no criminal convictions. And many of the people in detention have no hope for bond. This influx of people made possible by our senators has two beneficiaries: the Trump administration and the corporations that run these detention centers.

These corporations, like CoreCivic, which operates Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, are paid with our tax dollars for every person detained per day in their facilities. This increase in mandatory detention means an increase in CoreCivic’s profits. And mandatory detention means more people self-deport, which helps the Trump administration’s narrative.

Andres Carrillo has organized a fundraiser for Jesus Manuel Arenas-Silva. He sits in front of an ofrenda for victims of U.S. Immigration Policy. (Courtesy of Taylor Zorzi)
Andres Carrillo has organized a fundraiser for Jesus Manuel Arenas-Silva. He sits in front of an ofrenda for victims of U.S. Immigration Policy. (Courtesy of Taylor Zorzi)

Some detainees have gotten sick and chosen to self-deport

Mandatory detention pressures immigrants who now have to live in overcrowded and demeaning conditions to choose self-deportation. One of these people is Allison Bustillo. She was 20 years old, an aspiring nurse, and had been fighting her deportation when we met.

She described being made sick by the food. She told me that when she asked for the doctors because she was becoming chronically ill, they’d force her to wake up before 5 a.m., take her to a cold room and have her wait for hours to see the doctor. Then the doctor would tell her there was nothing she could do because Allison was on a “hunger strike.”

Bustillo would say she didn’t want to eat the food that kept making her sick. After eight months of deteriorating in front of everyone’s eyes, Bustillo chose to self-deport. Neither Democratic senator spoke up on her behalf even though constituents like me would call regularly to beg them to do anything.

Voting for the bill was utter cowardice from our senators. The consequences of this bill’s passage was so obvious to anyone paying attention, and they could have used their platform to argue against its gross inhumanity.

Bustillo never committed a crime. But she was locked away in a cage with dozens of other women, with unsafe food, no medical attention and 24/7 light and noise being played for eight months. She was shackled and kept in chains for her first night there all because our senators were too weak or lazy to advocate against the Laken Riley Act.

They could’ve done a politician’s job and persuaded people against it. I could make the argument it is sacrilegious to use the name of a 22-year-old nursing student who was tragically killed to intern another 20-year old nursing student who had nothing to do with it simply because she shares the same skin color as Laken Riley’s murderer.

Smaller ofrenda for victims who’ve died at the U.S.-Mexico border are seen at a vigil Sept. 12, 2026, at Vinings Lake Church in Mableton. Photos of two families who drowned in the Rio Grande sit on a blanketed table. 8,000 gold beads are strung up, each bead representing an official death at the border since 1998. (Courtesy of Andres Carrillo)
Smaller ofrenda for victims who’ve died at the U.S.-Mexico border are seen at a vigil Sept. 12, 2026, at Vinings Lake Church in Mableton. Photos of two families who drowned in the Rio Grande sit on a blanketed table. 8,000 gold beads are strung up, each bead representing an official death at the border since 1998. (Courtesy of Andres Carrillo)

Will senators be haunted by the deaths of seven immigrants?

Since their votes, seven people have died in ICE detention in Georgia.

And vague platitudes are not enough to distract us from their complicity in that when you have oversight power over these detention centers and your vote paved the way for these conditions.

In 2025, Ossoff and Warnock sent a letter to Trump officials sounding the alarm on immigration detention center deaths. Warnock went further by visiting Stewart Detention Center in August and successfully stopping funding to build new detention centers in federally purchased warehouses in Georgia. But this is bare minimum. Where are they now? Ossoff has not responded to calls to visit a Georgia detention center personally.

I hope they are haunted by the names of the seven people killed under their leadership, and that it spurs them to greater action. If you hope to represent the sons and daughters of immigrants for years to come, don’t get caught abandoning their parents as they’re tortured in camps you have power over.

Andres Carrillo is a local chef who organized a Sept. 12 vigil in Mableton for victims of U.S. Immigration policy, and a fundraiser for the family of Jesus Manuel Arenas-Silva, the fifth person to die in ICE custody in Georgia since the Laken Riley Act was signed into law in January 2025.

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The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.