A Canadian citizen died while in custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this week, the agency says.
Johnny Noviello, 49, died in a detention centre in Florida on Monday, an ICE news release says.
The cause of death is unknown and is under investigation, according to the release.
Despite having Canadian citizenship, the man had been in the U.S. since 1988 and became a lawful permanent resident in 1991, the release says.
In 2023, he was convicted of a number of offences — including racketeering and drug trafficking — and had been sentenced to 12 months in prison.
ICE agents arrested the man in May and he was being detained “pending removal proceedings,” the agency’s news release said.
CBC News has reached out to Global Affairs Canada for comment.
The man’s death comes as ICE agents have been making sweeping arrests across the United States.
Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a raft of executive orders that aim to clamp down on illegal immigration and advance his goal of deporting millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and the main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, has pushed ICE to aim for at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.
Trump himself has called on ICE officials “to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest mass deportation program in history.”