By State Representative Eric Bell (D-Jonesboro) 

There comes a moment when silence becomes betrayal. That moment is now.

I write this today with a heavy heart and a clear conscience in response to the death of a Mexican national who lost his life while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility in Clayton County. A man who entered that facility alive should not have left it in death. Yet, here we are again mourning a life lost behind concrete walls, barbed wire and bureaucratic indifference.

We are told he was found unresponsive. We are told an investigation is underway. We are told to wait.

But, history has taught us that justice delayed is justice denied, and families do not heal on press statements alone. The Mexican Consulate has rightly demanded answers, and our community must do the same—not tomorrow, not quietly, not behind closed doors but now—and in the open light of day.

Let us be clear: this tragedy did not occur in isolation. It occurred in a system that treats human beings as contracts, detention beds and line items. It occurred under the watch of ICE and within a facility operated by the GEO Group, a private corporation that profits when bodies are filled and cells remain occupied. When profit becomes the motive, humanity becomes optional.

Clayton County cannot wash its hands from this moment.

The presence of ICE in our county and our continued contractual relationship with the GEO Group at the Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility makes us complicit in a system that has repeatedly failed to protect human life. We cannot claim ignorance. We cannot claim neutrality. In the words of Dr. King, “he who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”

This is not about politics; this is about morality.

No mother should receive a call telling her that her son died alone in government custody. No family should have to beg for answers about how a loved one went from detained to deceased. And, no county that claims to value human dignity should continue a partnership that places lives at risk with such regularity.

Therefore, I call on the Clayton County Board of Commissioners to end the contract with the GEO Group and to remove ICE from the Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility. We want ICE and all ICE operations out of Clayton County. This is not a radical demand; it is a righteous one. It is the kind of decision that bends the long arc of the moral universe a little closer toward justice.

We must choose courage over comfort. We must choose people over profit. And, we must choose to be on the right side of history, not when it is easy but when it is necessary.

The measure of a community is not how it treats the powerful but how it treats the vulnerable. Clayton County must now decide who we are. And, we must decide quickly because lives depend on it.

Representative Eric Bell represents the citizens of District 75, which includes a portion of Clayton County. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2023 and currently serves on the Defense & Veterans Affairs, Human Relations & Aging and Small Business Development committees.

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