Mexico Files Complaint Over ICE Death of Green Card Holder Who Brought Medications to Detention Center

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A 56-year-old Mexican man who spent decades living in Dallas died inside a federal immigration detention center in Laredo on October 17 — the seventh person to lose his life in ICE custody in Texas this year, and the one whose case has most sharply exposed what his family calls a pattern of deliberate medical neglect.

Emiliano Andrade-Covarrubias was a lawful permanent resident, the father of three U.S.-born adult children, and a contractor who painted apartments and townhomes across the Dallas area. His daughter Estefani, 29 and a U.S. citizen, told the Texas Tribune that staff at the Rio Grande Processing Center refused to administer the medications he had brought with him when he was detained — heart medication, insulin management drugs, and blood pressure pills — and that when he told them he was struggling to breathe and feeling pressure in his chest, they would not engage with his concerns.

A Dallas Painter Who Kept Two Countries in His Heart

For years, Andrade-Covarrubias made regular trips south of the border to build a house in his home state of Mexico, intending to return there permanently once the project was finished. He was on one of those return crossings when his life changed: on June 26, immigration officers at a Laredo port of entry stopped him and refused to let him back into the country. ICE's official account, released the day after his death, says officers believed he had obtained his green card fraudulently by failing to disclose a 2004 theft arrest during the application review. A removal proceeding was opened against him, and an immigration court hearing had been scheduled for November 2.

Estefani Andrade disputes that account entirely. She told the Tribune that her father did disclose the 2004 arrest when he applied for his green card, and that immigration officials approved the application with full knowledge of his record. ICE has not addressed that counter-claim.

What is not in dispute is that he spent the following four months inside the Rio Grande Processing Center, a privately operated facility run by The GEO Group at 1001 San Rio Boulevard in Laredo. His weight dropped. His calls home grew more alarming. On the last video calls his family received, Estefani said, he looked visibly thinner and not like himself.

What His Daughter Says Happened Inside

The three conditions Andrade-Covarrubias arrived with — a heart condition, diabetes, and high blood pressure — were documented, his family says, and he had his prescription bottles on him when he entered custody. According to Estefani, facility staff would not hand over those medications. When he began reporting symptoms — a persistent cough, difficulty breathing, and tightness across his chest — he sought help from medical personnel at the center, but he told his daughter they would simply brush him off. The family was particularly unsettled by the respiratory complaints: Andrade-Covarrubias had been hospitalized for COVID-19 in 2021, and the illness had left a lasting imprint on his lungs.

On the morning of October 17, staff conducting a security check found him unresponsive in his bed at approximately 9:48 a.m., according to KGNS, the Laredo television station that first confirmed the timeline from ICE's internal statement. Security personnel declared a medical emergency and began life-saving measures. The Laredo Fire Department's paramedics were dispatched. He was pronounced dead at 10:10 a.m., roughly 22 minutes after being discovered.

The family did not learn of his death from any federal authority. Estefani told the Tribune that the call came from the Webb County Medical Examiner's office, which had begun the autopsy. On October 19, KGNS reported that the examiner subsequently ruled the death natural — though the Texas Tribune's reporting from the same evening noted that ICE had not yet released an official cause of death, describing it as still pending autopsy. Editors should note this discrepancy between sources before publication.

ICE Disputes the Neglect Claims

In a statement released the Monday after his death, ICE confirmed his identity and acknowledged his green card status. The agency said Andrade-Covarrubias had a documented medical history of diabetes, high blood pressure, and anxiety, and insisted that he received proper medical care and was seen by health professionals while in custody. The Department of Homeland Security separately stated that staff provided appropriate care for his condition.

ICE did not answer specific questions about whether he was given his own medications or what medical assessments were conducted in the days before his death, citing the ongoing investigation. The GEO Group, the private detention contractor that operates the facility, directed all questions to ICE.

Mexico Escalates Its Legal Campaign

The Secretariat of Foreign Relations issued a statement on Sunday, October 18 — within 24 hours of the family receiving the medical examiner's call — demanding a prompt, thorough, and transparent investigation. Mexico's Consulate General in Laredo confirmed it had been formally notified by ICE and announced that a complaint would be filed with the Webb County prosecutor's office. President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed that decision during her Monday morning press conference, framing it in the language of human rights: where the protection of Mexican nationals fails, her government said, legal mechanisms must follow.

The complaint is the latest chapter in a legal campaign Mexico began escalating in July 2026. Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez has coordinated a broader effort that by late July had produced 20 formal complaints filed by Mexico's ambassador in Washington with state and county prosecutors across eight states, a direct referral to the U.S. Department of Justice, and a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk. Andrade-Covarrubias is counted as the 18th Mexican national to die in U.S. immigration custody or during an enforcement operation since January 20, 2025, according to the Mexican Consulate's tally.

A Facility, a Pattern, a Record Year

Andrade-Covarrubias was not the first person to die at a Laredo immigration facility in 2026. In June, Felix Alcorta-Rodriguez — a 63-year-old Mexican national — was found unresponsive at the nearby Webb County Detention Center and died on June 19. That facility is operated by CoreCivic, a separate private contractor. The first ICE detention death recorded in Texas this year was Geraldo Lunas Campos, whose death at Camp East Montana in El Paso was ruled a homicide by the El Paso Medical Examiner's office in January.

The Laredo deaths fit inside a national trend that a Bloomberg Law investigation documented when fiscal year 2026 closed on September 30: at least 37 people died in ICE custody between October 2025 and September 2026, the deadliest fiscal year in the agency's recorded history. That figure is more than three times the 11 deaths reported in fiscal year 2024, the last full year before the current administration took office. Human rights organizations have consistently tied the increase to the expansion of the detained population, the reduction of independent oversight staff, and gaps in contracted medical care.

Congress Presses ICE for Answers

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, the Democrat who represents Laredo in Congress, confirmed the death and visited the Rio Grande Processing Center on Sunday. Staff told him they could not discuss the specific case while the investigation was active. He has since sent ICE a formal set of written questions. "Any death in federal custody is a serious matter, and we need to know what happened," Cuellar said in a statement on Monday.

A Supreme Court ruling issued June 23, 2026 adds an important legal dimension to the case. In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court held that CBP officers at ports of entry are not required to have "clear and convincing evidence" that a returning green card holder committed a qualifying crime before treating that person as someone seeking admission rather than as a resident with established rights. The ruling, handed down just three days before Andrade-Covarrubias was detained, lowered the evidentiary threshold that officers need to justify detaining permanent residents at the border. ICE has not stated whether that decision played any role in the June 26 stop.

Under the 2018 homeland security appropriations legislation, ICE is required to publish a full report on every in-custody death within 90 days. If the clock runs from October 17, the agency's deadline for public disclosure falls on January 15, 2027.

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