Authorities in Canada are seeking information about the death of a 49-year-old Canadian man who died while in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody in Florida this week.
In a statement, Ice, part of the Department of Homeland Security, said Johnny Noviello, 49, died on 23 June after being found unresponsive at a federal detention center in Miami, where he was being detained “pending removal proceedings” from the US.
“Medical staff responded immediately and began administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation, automated external defibrillator shock and called 911,” Ice stated.
Noviello, who first entered the US in 1988 with a legal visa status and became a permanent resident (green card holder) three years later, was taken into Ice custody on 15 May.
He was convicted of multiple drug charges, including racketeering and drug trafficking in Volusia county, Florida, and sentenced to 12 months in prison in 2023.
On May 15, he was arrested by Ice and deemed removable from the US because of the controlled substance convictions, the statement said.
Canada’s foreign minister, Anita Anand, posted on X that the Canadian authorities had been notified of Noviello’s death while in custody in the US and Canadian consular officials “are urgently seeking more information from US officials”.
Noviello is the ninth person to die in Ice custody this year, and the fourth to die in a Florida facility, according to the Miami Herald.
“Ice remains committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments,” the agency said in its statement, adding that “at no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergent care”.
The federal government can revoke green cards and deport their holders for committing certain crimes, including drug trafficking and other serious felonies.
Daniel Leising, a lawyer who represented Noviello in the 2023 racketeering case involving selling opioids – oxycodone, hydromorphine and hydrocodone – in Daytona Beach, said his client “was just working, nothing out of the ordinary, no violations, nothing else. There was nothing on my mind that would’ve created any circumstance where Johnny Noviello would have been a danger to anyone.”
Leising told the outlet that Noviello’s family said he had epilepsy and was on seizure medication and they had worked “painstakingly to make sure that he got his meds”.
