Man With No Criminal Record Dies in Louisiana ICE Facility Which Inspectors Already Flagged for Excessive Force

A man with no criminal history has died inside a Louisiana immigration detention centre that federal inspectors flagged for banned use-of-force tactics just days before his death.

Mamuka Artmeladze, a 43-year-old Georgian national, was found unresponsive on 4 June 2026 at Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, ICE announced in a press release on 7 June. Staff attempted resuscitation before he was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later. The cause of death is pending an autopsy.

His death is the 19th recorded in ICE custody since 1 January 2026, and the second at Winn in under two months.

Mamuka Artmeladze Background

Artmeladze had no criminal record, placing him among the majority of the more than 1,500 male detainees held at Winn at any given time. According to ICE, Border Patrol encountered him in September 2022 and, at that time, allowed him to remain in the United States under ICE supervision.

He was arrested in Alabama in February 2026 after ICE determined he no longer had lawful status. He had been held at Winn, a facility managed by the Winn Parish Sheriff's Office and private contractor LaSalle Corrections, for nearly four months before his death.

The first death at Winn this year came on 11 April 2026. A coroner's report obtained by the Associated Press shows that Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, a 49-year-old Mexican national, was found unresponsive during a routine security check. Staff attempted resuscitation and he was transported to Winn Parish Medical Center, where he later died, the same hospital to which Artmeladze was taken.

The DHS Inspector General Report

Two days before Artmeladze's death, on 2 June 2026, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General published report OIG-26-08, the result of an unannounced inspection of Winn carried out from 4 to 6 March 2025. At the time of that inspection, ICE housed 1,576 male detainees at the facility, its contractual maximum.

The report found that the facility 'did not fully comply with reviewed standards for environmental health and safety, food service, use of force, medical care, classification, voluntary work programme, legal access and materials, staff-detainee communication, and outdoor recreation.'

The use-of-force findings were among the most serious. Inspectors reviewed five use-of-force incidents and found staff used prohibited techniques or failed to follow standards in three of them. In one, an officer applied a chokehold on a detainee, a technique the report states is specifically prohibited under ICE detention standards. In a second incident, an officer stabbed a detainee's thumb with a pen after the detainee refused to remove his hand from a door. A third case involved staff placing mechanical restraints on a detainee without the required medical review being documented on camera.

Physical conditions at the facility were also cited as deficient. The OIG report described water leaking through kitchen vents, holes and exposed insulation in the intake building's ceiling, and food stored in freezers above required temperatures. Medical staff failed to keep updated treatment documents and laboratory testing records, a failure the report warned could 'negatively impact detainee health care and safety.' ICE agreed with all nine recommendations issued by the watchdog and said it had already implemented several of them.

Congressional Response and Wider Toll in ICE Custody

Representative Pramila Jayapal, Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement, responded to the OIG report in a statement published on her official congressional website. 'This DHS OIG report details what we have heard from detained immigrants across the country,' she wrote, 'that these detention centres have violated numerous required standards and are putting people's health and safety at serious risk.'

She called on DHS to immediately withdraw funding from facilities that 'consistently do not meet the minimum required standards' and urged Congress to pass her Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, which would end the use of private, for-profit detention centres.

Winn is operated by LaSalle Corrections, a Louisiana-based private prison company, under contract with ICE. A DHS spokesperson responded to the OIG findings by stating the report demonstrated the facility's 'compliance with detention standards,' despite the documented excessive-force incidents. ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Artmeladze's death beyond the initial press release.

The 19 deaths recorded in ICE custody since the start of 2026 represent a pace that has drawn sustained scrutiny from civil liberties organisations and legislators alike. Artmeladze had no criminal record; he had not been charged with any offence. He had been held for nearly four months when he died.

The federal government's own watchdog had already documented banned force tactics, deteriorating infrastructure and failing medical record-keeping at Winn Correctional Center, and then, two days later, a man in its custody was dead.