In this April 13, 2009, file photo, an employee waits at the front gate of the Stewart Detention Facility, a Corrections Corporation of America immigration facility in Lumpkin, Ga.

In this April 13, 2009, file photo, an employee waits at the front gate of the Stewart Detention Facility, a Corrections Corporation of America immigration facility in Lumpkin, Ga. / AP Photo/File

Federal authorities say a Panamanian detainee at a south Georgia immigration detention center appears to have killed himself.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a news release that 27-year-old Jean Jimenez-Joseph was found unresponsive with a sheet around his neck in his cell at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin early Monday and attempts to revive him failed. He was pronounced dead at a hospital in Americus at 2:15 a.m.

ICE says the preliminary cause of death was ruled "self-inflicted strangulation."

Jimenez was convicted Jan. 5 in Wake County, North Carolina, of stealing a vehicle.

He was turned over to ICE on March 2 after his release from local law enforcement custody and was in deportation proceedings.

Jimenez is the seventh person to die while in ICE custody in fiscal year 2017.

Tags: ICE  immigration  Georgia