Green Card Holder Dies in ICE Custody in Laredo

Emiliano Andrade-Covarrubias, the 56-year-old Dallas man who died Oct. 17 at ICE’s Rio Grande Processing Center in Laredo, was a green card holder, ICE said in a statement reported by the Texas Tribune on Oct. 19. The agency’s account recasts the case: he was not a migrant caught crossing, but a lawful permanent resident stopped at a Laredo port of entry on June 26 while returning from Mexico and held for nearly four months on the government’s claim that he obtained his status by hiding a 2004 theft arrest.

That detail was not public when his death was covered here on Oct. 18. It matters beyond one family because it shows how long a returning resident flagged over an old record can sit in detention before any judge decides whether his status was valid.

According to ICE, as reported by the Tribune, he was in removal proceedings with an immigration court hearing set for Nov. 2. ICE said he was found unconscious in his bed Saturday morning and declared dead about 20 minutes later despite chest compressions, and that he received proper medical care. The cause of death awaits an autopsy by the Webb County Medical Examiner.

His daughter, Estefani Andrade, disputes both halves of the government’s account. She told the Tribune her father disclosed his criminal record when he applied and was approved anyway, and that he had heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, was denied the medication he brought and had his complaints of chest tightness ignored. Those are her statements; no agency or medical finding has addressed them. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, inspected the facility Sunday, sent ICE written questions and said any death in federal custody is serious and the facts must be known.

A fraud charge built on an arrest, not a conviction

ICE’s theory is misrepresentation, not a crime. The Immigration and Nationality Act makes inadmissible anyone who obtained an immigration benefit by fraud or by willfully misrepresenting a material fact, and the Board of Immigration Appeals held in Matter of Koloamatangi (2003) that a person who got a green card that way was never “lawfully admitted for permanent residence” in the first place. That is what lets officers treat a long-time resident as someone with no status to return to.

The weak point in such cases is usually materiality. An arrest alone is not a ground of inadmissibility, and a single minor theft offense can fall within the petty-offense exception, so the fight usually turns on whether the omission itself mattered. The Supreme Court’s test in Kungys v. United States asks whether it had a natural tendency to influence the decision. Whether he disclosed the arrest at all is the factual question his daughter disputes. The Nov. 2 hearing was where both points would have been tested. Removal proceedings ordinarily end when the respondent dies, so the government’s fraud claim is likely to go unresolved.

What Blanche v. Lau changed at the border

The Tribune tied the case to Blanche v. Lau, decided 6-3 on June 23, three days before he was detained. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, held that a border officer does not need clear and convincing evidence that a returning permanent resident committed a disqualifying crime before treating him as an applicant for admission; the government’s burden is measured later, at the removal hearing. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent warned that the ruling leaves residents in “immigration limbo.”

The fit is imperfect. Lau interpreted the criminal-offense exception for returning residents, while ICE’s stated reason here is fraud in obtaining status. The practical result is the one the dissent described: a resident turned into an applicant for admission at the port, with the decision on his status pushed more than four months down the road. Treated as an applicant for admission, a returning resident can also fall within the detention provision ICE has applied without bond hearings since July 2025, the policy the Supreme Court agreed on Oct. 1 to review.

He entered a crowded system. TRAC at Syracuse University counted 65,765 people in ICE detention as of July 11, 2026, 70.6 percent of them with no criminal conviction, and Texas held 16,450 detainees as of July 9, more than any other state. The Tribune counts his as the seventh death in ICE custody in Texas this year.

The next facts will come from the Webb County autopsy, from any answers ICE gives Cuellar, and from ICE’s detainee death report, which the agency says must be made public within 90 days, or around mid-January 2027. None of them will settle whether the green card he held was ever valid.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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