Family: ICE denied care to Stewart detainee who died of leukemia

The Stewart Detention Center is back in the headlines after a 29-year-old detainee was reportedly denied care shortly before his death after being held in the Lumpkin, Georgia facility.

According to his family, Priciliano Trejo, who had leukemia, said he wasn’t feeling well on July 6, 2026 and asked for medical care, but ICE did not provide it for eight days until they took him to the hospital on July 13, 2026. Two days later Trejo was in a coma, and ICE contacted his family to give them custody of him. He died on Friday, July 24, at the hospital. Because custody of Trejo was given to his family before his death, his death will likely not be reported by ICE.

Shortly before his death Trejo posted on social media about his ordeal saying “This is Truely the worst feeling of my life. I pray for people in this situation because it not easy. Most of these people aren’t even criminals. Their either working or coming home from work when captured.” Trejo was detained this past June in North Carolina and transferred to Stewart Detention Center.

A GoFundMe for Trejo states his parents immigrated to the U.S with him when he was just 3 years old in hopes of a better life and work hard to achieve their own American dream. In the three-weeks he was at the ICE detention center, he became increasingly sick. He would call and video call his family daily for emotional support. He expressed high levels of stress, depression, and physical illness during his time there. He shared with his family multiple times that he was feeling unwell, coughing up blood, in pain, and with a bruise that would not heal.

Prisciliano Trejo had just celebrated his 29th birthday July 10, 2026 and was remembered by family as “a confident, funny, and outgoing person. He dominated a room with jokes and was silly with everyone he met. As a cousin, he was always there to listen and be there for someone in their time of need. He was on the road doing various activities to stay physically active and work to meet his own goals.”

This tragedy raises the death toll to 22 deaths in ICE custody or released shortly after, like Trejo, in Georgia and the 15 people who died at Stewart Detention Center, one of the deadliest ICE prisons in the country according to Detention Watch. Operated by private prison corporation, CoreCivic, the Stewart Detention Center is one of the largest ICE detention centers in the country with an average daily population of over 2,000 people.

The Detention Watch Network reports the Stewart Detention Center has a long record of abuse and death. People detained at the Stewart Detention Center and immigrants’ rights advocates have been exposing inhumane conditions there for over a decade. Documented abuses include inept mental health care, use of solitary confinement, unsanitary conditions, COVID-19 negligence, medical neglect, forced labor, and use of force against people detained.

In 2023, women bravely stepped forward to submit federal complaints about the sexual assault they experienced at the hands of a Stewart nurse from May 2021 to May 2022.