A 56-year-old immigrant died this week at a newly opened federal immigration detention facility in northern Michigan, raising new questions about transparency and conditions inside one of the largest detention centers in the Midwest.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday notified members of Congress that Nenko Stanev Gantchev, a citizen of Bulgaria, died Monday at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin. The facility reopened in June as an immigration detention center after years of operating as a private prison.
“The official cause of death remains under investigation but is suspected to be from natural causes,” an ICE official wrote in an email to U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit.
Tlaib visited the North Lake facility on Dec. 5 after receiving complaints from families and advocates about conditions inside the center. She says she had heard rumors of a tuberculosis outbreak and possible deaths but had not received confirmation from ICE at the time.
“There was a lot of fear from family members,” Tlaib tells Metro Times. “ICE should be able to respond quickly and address the fear that somebody died under their care.”
Kevin Hughes, health officer for District Health Department #10, which serves Lake County, said his office had not been notified of any death or communicable disease outbreak at the facility.
“The only thing they would have to report to us is a communicable disease,” Hughes says. “We have not heard anything about a death.”
Hughes confirms that some detainees were tested for tuberculosis and isolated while awaiting results but said there was no indication of an outbreak.
“We know they tested some people for TB, and they isolated them during testing, and no one said there was an outbreak,” he says.
ICE declined to respond to questions from Metro Times, including whether there have been any other deaths at the facility or whether any communicable disease outbreaks have occurred.
Gantchev’s death comes amid growing scrutiny of medical care and transparency in immigration detention facilities nationwide. According to data tracked by advocacy groups, dozens of people have died in ICE custody over the past decade, with watchdogs repeatedly citing delays in medical treatment, inadequate staffing, and limited oversight as contributing factors. Federal officials have often attributed those deaths to natural causes while investigations remain pending.
Advocates fear deaths are on the rise as the Trump administration fills detention centers with undocumented immigrants at unprecedented rates.
North Lake Processing Center is a privately owned facility operated by the GEO Group. Originally built in 1999, the prison has housed Michigan youth offenders, out-of-state prisoners, and non-citizen federal inmates before closing in 2022 when the federal government canceled contracts with private prisons. It reopened on June 16 as an ICE processing center and can hold up to 1,800 detainees, making it one of the largest immigration detention facilities in the country.
Civil rights groups warned about the reopening months before detainees began arriving.
“The re-opening of this massive detention center is a major threat to our immigrant friends and neighbors throughout Michigan and the Midwest,” ACLU of Michigan Executive Director Loren Khogali said in June, citing GEO Group’s “documented history of neglecting and abusing the people it detains and employs.”
The ACLU raised concerns about medical neglect, access to attorneys, and due process, noting that detainees at the facility previously organized multiple hunger strikes demanding medical care and better conditions.
Tlaib echoed those concerns following her visit earlier this month, writing on X that oversight of ICE was “critical right now” and that more than 1,400 people were being detained at North Lake, including a teenager.
In a video accompanying the post, Tlaib said, “We’re going to hold them accountable. We’re going to make sure the conditions are safe, and that everyone’s rights are protected.”
The Department of Homeland Security responded to Tlaib’s visit with a sharply worded statement attacking her and other lawmakers who conduct oversight of detention facilities.
“When radical members of Congress like Rashida Tlaib visit ICE facilities, they never talk about the monsters that are detained,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, accusing Tlaib of spreading “FALSE allegations” and blaming criticism of ICE for an increase in assaults on officers.
But DHS’ predictably hyperbolic statement omitted the fact that most Michigan residents detained by ICE have no criminal record, as Metro Times reported in September.
Local health officials say their role is limited and that ICE is only required to notify them of certain conditions.
“If the death was due to a reportable communicable disease, we would have been notified,” Hughes says.
As of Thursday, ICE had not publicly released additional details about Gantchev’s death or explained why Congress and local officials were notified days later, only after Tlaib sought answers.