6/4/08 – Statement on Immigration Detainee Health Care

THE STATS SHOW THAT DEATH IN ICE CUSTODY RATES INCREASED 29% IN 2007 OVER 2006. WHAT ABOUT 2008?

6/4/08 Statement on Immigration Detainee Health Care
Homer D. Venters, M.D.Attending Physician, Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture
Public Health Fellow, New York University
House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship,
Refugees, Border Security, and International Law

Hearing on Problems with Immigration Detainee Medical Care
June 4, 2008

Good Afternoon. My name is Dr. Homer Venters. I am an attending physician at the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture as well as a Public Health Fellow with NewYork University. I am testifying today on behalf of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors ofTorture and the NYU School of Medicine Center for Health and Human Rights. I would like to thank Congresswoman Lofgren and members of the Subcommittee for inviting me to testify on immigrant detainee healthcare. My area of research as a Public Health Fellow is the medical care provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees. Together with my colleague, Dr. Allen Keller (Director of the Torture Survivors Program and the Center for Health and Human Rights) I have conducted analysis of the ICE healthcare system, including the mortality statistics recently released by ICE and the specific provisions of the ICE health plan.

My comments today focus on these two areas and I will provide recommendations for improvements of the ICE healthcare system. The central thesis of my remarks is that behindconfusing and unreliable statistics concerning detainee deaths, the ICE healthcare system contains key elements that may jeopardize detainee health. Contrary to public statements by ICE, it is our conclusion that this health system, and the care it allows for detainees, is getting worse not better.

Misleading Mortality Statistics

I would like to begin with the recent discussion of detainee mortality reported by ICE. I am referring to the ICE fact sheet on detainee deaths dated May 2008 as well as the Op-Ed by Assistant Secretary Myers in the Washington Post.

In these documents, ICE relies on inappropriate use of basic epidemiologic terms and inaccurate comparisons between populations known to be radically different. The lack of standardized mortality or morbidity reported in these documents provokes grave concern for the welfare of ICE detainees and the ability of ICE to monitor the quality of its own health care system.

ICE reports falling detainee ‘mortality’ rates but their figures are based on unreliable calculations. In Fiscal Year 2006 ICE detained approximately 250,000 people while in 2007, that number rose to 310,000. Because the total number of detainee deaths dropped from 17 to 11 during those periods, ICE claims that the mortality rate fell from 6.7 to 3.5 per 100,000 detentions, a 49% decrease.
However this conclusion neglects a very basic and essential issue, – the length of detention. From 2006 to 2007, the average length of ICE detention decreased from 90 days to 37. Adjusting for risk of exposure (such as length of detention) is a fundamental practice of both medicine and epidemiology and failure to do so reflects flawed methodology

For instance, no physician would make conclusions about a patient’s risk from smoking without including how long that patient had been a smoker. Taking ICE’s same fiscal year numbers, but correctly adjusting for average length of detention, it is clear that the length-adjusted mortality Actually increased between 2006 and 2007 from 27 to 34 per 100,000 detention-years, a 29% increase (see Table 1 for side by side comparison).

Consequently, the statistics presented by ICE tend to present an unduly rosy picture of detainee mortality.

A second glaring weakness in the ICE statistics is found in their comparison between deaths of ICE detainees and those in a general prison population. Again, the lack of standardization for length of detention makes this a flawed comparison, since prisoners are typically held for a longer period of time in a given year than are ICE detainees. For example, imagine that ICE detained 300,000 people per year for one day each and U.S. prisons detained 300,000 people each for a full year. It would be incorrect to conclude that because fewer people died in ICE custody than in prison custody, the healthcare provided to ICE detainees was somehow superior.

The fact that the average ICE detainee spends so much less time in custody than the average prisoner in a given year must be factored in to provide any meaningful results.

Aside from lacking standardization over a given year, any comparison of ICE detainees to prisoner populations is dubious because prisoners are incarcerated for much longer periods of time in total than ICE detainees. Prison research has shown that mortality rates increase with time of incarceration, so even if ICE had standardized for time detained in a given year, prisoners who have accumulated years of prior detention are known to have higher rates of mortality.

Also, when ICE favorably compares mortality of detainees to those of prisoners and the general population, there is no adjustment for age or disease prevalence. For example, U.S. prisoners have high rates of infectious disease, and the general U.S. population may be older, suffering from higher rates of heart disease and cancer than the ICE population. Without correct adjustment for these types of possible differences, the figures provided by ICE are unreliable.

To be clear, mortality is an imprecise method for appraising healthcare in a transitional population. Because death is rare and detention is short, mortality likely under-represents problems with health care delivery among ICE detainees. Morbidity, which refers to sickness or having a disease, is a better measure of the efficacy of ICE healthcare since by ICE estimates, at least 34% of detainees suffer from chronic diseases. (Josie note – many detainees such as myself had our own paid for medication with us, it was taken away and if we begged we were given substitute medication that was dangerous)
Consequently, complications from poorly controlled chronic disease, such as diabetes, HIV, asthma or hypertension are more sensitive health care measures. Unfortunately, ICE makes reports no specific information about morbidity of detainees. However, even morbidity may under-represent adverse effects of this system. As with mortality, shorter detentions will tend to produce fewer adverse events. In thinking of ICE detention as a risk factor, as ICE detention time shortens, the likelihood is that adverse events. caused by this risk will occur afterwards. This may have been the case with Juan Guillermo, 37, who was denied his seizure medicines while detained by ICE and died of complications from seizures shortly after being deported to Mexico (could have been me)

This discussion of ICE detainee mortality reveals two important pieces of information.First, the length-adjusted mortality for detainees has increased from 2006 to 2007. The causes or significance of this increase are unclear but it certainly is not the case that detainee mortality is dramatically falling, as ICE has asserted.
Second, the reliance by ICE on unsound statistical methods that consistently present a more positive picture of detainee health should generate concerns about the ability of ICE to adequately assess and improve its own healthcare system.Our review of the ICE health plan, including recent changes, suggests that ICE detainees are receiving medical care that is increasingly limited and inconsistent with current standards of medical practice.

II. An Acute Care Health System for a Population in Need of Much More
Healthcare provided for ICE detainees is directed by a set of rules under the Detention Management Control Program of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This program creates procedures for ICE detention operations but does not carry the force of law. Particular
medical policies and reimbursement guidelines are determined by the Division of immigration Health Services (DIHS), recently incorporated into DHS from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. DIHS guidelines then become part of the overall set of ICE rules for detention operations.

Despite acknowledging the substantial burden of chronic disease among detainees, the ICE health plan maintains a steadfast focus on an acute care model. The 1/3 of detainees with medical problems that require ongoing, skilled care for problems such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma and HIV find themselves in a medical setting geared towards addressing ankle sprains, cuts and bruises and calling 911 in case of emergency. Unfortunately, the ICE health plan is clearly not crafted to care for a population with significant chronic medical or mental health needs. The introduction of the ICE planexplains “The DIHS Medical Dental Detainee Covered Services Package primarily provides health care services for emergency care. Emergency care is defined as ‘a condition that is threatening to life, limb, hearing or sight

This institutional aversion to caring for detainees with chronic disease is evidenced in recent detainee deaths. One year ago, a 23 year old transgender woman, Victoria Arellano was detained Ms. Arellano had AIDS and was taking a life saving medicine to prevent opportunistic infections that could quickly cause pneumonia and death were she to stop. These medicines essential for people with AIDS and even a brief interruption risks sickness and death for a patient. Despite reporting her medical history and her medication when detained (and throughout her detention), Ms. Arellano was refused her medicine. Over the following weeks, Ms. Arellano developed a cough and fever, which should have prompted hospitalization and evaluation Instead, Ms. Arellano was given an inappropriate antibiotic by the detention center medical staff was still refused her needed medication, and returned to her cell. By the time Ms. Arellano’s cellmates staged a protest to draw attention to her deteriorating condition, she had become very ill and died soon thereafter, comatose and shackled to her bed. Faced with a common chronic disease, ICE medical staff withheld the correct medicines, gave inappropriate medicines and failed to seek more competent care for Ms. Arellano. The care that Ms. Arellano required would be routine in almost any medical clinic or hospital in the United States.

Among the most prevalent chronic diseases from which detainees suffer may be depression and anxiety. The prevalence of these conditions is difficult to gauge in part because detainee may fear being placed in segregation should they report mental health symptoms. This fear was documented in study conducted jointly by the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture and Physicians for Human Rights in 2003 among asylum seekers (admittedly, a small subset of detainees). This report found that “the mental health of asylum seekers interviewed for thisstudy was extremely poor and worsened the longer that individuals were in detention.” In this study, symptoms of depression were present in 86% of the 70 detained asylum seekers, and anxiety was present in 77% and PTSD in 50%
The study also documented significant difficulties for immigrant detainees accessing health services for painful and sometimes dangerous health problems. Unfortunately, recent reports by the Washington Post and New York Times demonstrate that the problems with detainee healthcare documented in 2003 are notnew and have not been corrected. In fact the concerns are even greater today, given that current immigration policies continue to dramatically expand immigration detention The fear of arbitrary and inhumane segregation is not hypothetical and has real bearing on the health of ICE detainees. In 2007, a 52 year old man from Guinea, Boubacar Bah, fell while in ICE custody and sustained a head injury.
Mr. Bah was transferred to the medical unit of the detention center but when he became agitated, confused and vomited, Mr. Bah was written up for disobeying orders and transferred to segregation (a euphemistic term for solitary confinement with approval of medical staff. The behavior that served as an excuse for disciplinary transfer to solitary confinement was in reality a sentinel sign of intracranial bleeding. The most shocking aspect of this case is that Mr. Bah was actually in the medical unit, under the care of ICE medical staff when the ill-conceived idea to place him in solitary confinement was approved. Mr. Bah’s condition deteriorated steadily under the watch of ICE personnel until 14 hours after his fall foaming at the mouth and unresponsive, he was transferred to a hospital. Mr. Bah was quickly diagnosed with a fractured skull, multiple spots of bleeding in his brain and ICE notified his family five days later of his condition. Mr. Bah died several months later without ever regaining consciousness and ICE medical staff originally reported his cause of death as ‘aneurysm’ without any mention of his fractured skull. While most detainees who are inappropriately placed in solitary confinement do not die, this case illustrates how very basic medical judgment can be abandoned in the detention setting. A man who had just fallen and lost consciousness, already inside the medical unit, was somehow judged to be ‘disobeying orders’ instead of manifesting a clearly recognizable sign of head trauma. Solitary confinement is obviously inappropriate for someone who is ill, but this case and others call into question the very practice of placingdetainees in such a setting

III. Specific Weakness in the ICE Health Plan Imperil Detainees

In addition to the broad institutional problems facing detainees who require medical care there are very specific aspects of the ICE health plan that warrant concern. DIHS has altered the Covered Services Package several times in the past few years, limiting the scope of medical care for detainees. Publicly reported deaths of detainees have included cases in which persons with chronic diseases were refused access to care outside their respective detention centers
refusal for this care comes in the form of a Treatment Authorization Request submitted by local medical staff at a detention center and denied by DIHS. Before 2005, the Covered Services Package entitled detained with chronic medical problems to ‘chronic care’ visits every three months. In 2005, the Covered Services Package was changed in the following manner: “we have clarified to providers that DIHS does not mandate the frequency a detainee is seen or what testing needs to be done by the onsite physician. The responsibility will lie with the provider.”;
In stark contrast to these recent changes by ICE, there is clear and convincing evidence establishing system-wide protocols for chronic disease diagnosis and treatment (including preapproved visits, tests and treatments) results in decreased mortality and morbidity this change eliminated any notion of standard of care (such as a set protocol for treating specific diseases), and further increased the burden of securing prior approval for outside care, the net effect may have been to limit care for detainees with chronic medical problems.
One tragic example is Francisco Castaneda, a 34 year old man from El Salvador, who was detained for 11 months by ICE with bleeding penile lesions. Despite numerous physicians documenting concern that his lesions were cancerous, DIHS refused the TAR for biopsy labeling the test ‘elective’ After being released from detention, Mr. Castaneda was finally able to receive appropriate evaluation and treatment. But by then it was too late and Mr. Castaneda died shortly after beginning treatment for metastatic penile cancer

Another potential threat to detainee medical care is the requirement of the Covered Services Package that mandates that detention center medical providers include non-medical criteria any potential referral for outside care. The Covered Services Package allows non-emergent care with the following explanation: “Other medical conditions which the physician believes, if untreated during the period of ICE/BP custody, would cause deterioration of the detainee’s health or uncontrolled suffering affecting his/her deportation status will be assessed and evaluated for care With these conditions, ICE simultaneously demands that a care provider estimate the length of detention for a detainee and assess whether or not deterioration of the condition might impact deportation. Both of these non-medical criteria potentially limit the care provided to detainees and likely create ethical (and potentially legal) jeopardy for ICE providers In contrast, the U.S. Marshals Service relies on medical necessity alone in establishing criteria for outside referral

A third problem with the care allowed under the Covered Services Package pertains to health screening. Originally (prior to the 2005 changes), the plan approved basic health screening tests such as mammograms and pap smears only after one year in detention. This guideline was substandard because many detainees likely had little or no prior health screening and would have benefited from indicated health screening tests (as is the standard at Rikers Island Jail in New York City, where average length of stay is shorter than average ICE detention
But even this substandard coverage was further reduced in 2005 when the Covered Services Package substituted diagnostic criteria for what they continued to call screening tests. The new guidelines stated “screening for disease processes (e.g., breast, cervical, prostatic, colorectal cancer) are considered on a case by case basis, subject to clinical findings…In other words, clinical findings must support the need for the requested screening. This change will remove the impression that these tests are automatically approved for a detainee who is in custody for over 12 months Screening tests are by definition, applied to the entire non-symptomatic portion of a population For example, in discussing Pap smears, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommends screening for cervical cancer in women who have been sexually active and have a cervix There is no reference to symptoms or clinical suspicion in this, or any other screening recommendation and to wait until clinical suspicion or symptoms appear completely undermines the ‘screening’ aspect of the test. This difference is enormously important because while ICE continues to call these tests ‘screening’, they are in fact forcing tens of thousands of people to forgo some of the most beneficial and cost-effective measures of modern medicine. By waiting until detainees show symptoms or arouse clinical suspicion of a disease, ICE deprives detainees of the accepted medical practice of early detection and treatment in favor of letting diseases such as cervical breast and prostate cancer develop to the point of symptoms

A final but critical problem with the ICE health plan involves changes in how each Treatment Authorization Request (TAR) is processed. Prior to changes in 2005, detention centermedical staff could submit a TAR and if it was rejected by DIHS, they could appeal this refusal These appeals were reviewed by a team of 3 DIHS physicians. This formal appeal process was scrapped in 2005 in favor of a ‘grievance’ process that eliminated the physician review component. In addition, in 2007 ICE changed the guidelines for refusing TAR’s so that DIHS nurses could reject a TAR without any input from the DIHS medical director. Such oversight by the medical director was required for rejection of TAR’s prior to this change. The net effect of these two changes is that physicians in detention centers may have their TAR’s rejected by offsite nurses and they have lost the ability to appeal such decisions to a group of physicians

IV. Recommendations

We recommend several specific changes to the DIHS Medical Dental Detainee Covered Services Package as well as to the larger health infrastructure if ICE. Without these changes, we are concerned that all detainees held by ICE face an unacceptably low standard of medical care that will adversely affect their health
1. The DIHS Medical Dental Detainee Covered Services Package must be altered in the following ways:
A. Care for chronic disease must be routinely available and reflect community standards for the care of HIV, diabetes, hypertension and other common chronic diseases. Part of these improvements must include pre-approval for standard foreseeable care

B. Health screening tests must be made available based on prevailing medical standards and any mention of ‘clinical suspicion’ or ‘symptoms’ must be eliminated from criteria for these tests

C. Non-medical criteria must be eliminated from the process of detention center medical staff seeking a TAR for detainees. Specifically, the mandate that ICE providers balance a deteriorating condition and uncontrolled suffering against the ability to deport the detainee or estimate a detainee’s length of detention must be eliminated from the health plan

D. TARs generated by physicians should not be rejected by nurses without review by a physician. Any TAR rejected by DIHS should be open to a genuine appeal ncluding review by physicians

2. ICE should be mandated to report vital health statistics (including deaths, disease complications, accidents and forcible medical actions against detainees) to a body outside DHS with expertise in public health and epidemiology. One possible solution would be to return DIHS to the Health Resources and Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services and include an ICE medical monitoring division

3. Detainees with serious medical ailments requiring high levels of care should be routinely considered for parole. The correctional setting is an inefficient and inhumane venue for persons with medical problems requiring high levels of ongoing medical care

>4. Healthcare for ICE detainees must be guaranteed and defined as a matter of law. Many of the deaths reported among ICE detainees involve poor adherence to existing ICE

guidelines. Greater accountability is needed to ensure compliance in healthcare standards across the wide spectrum of detention centers
These improvements will require substantial effort, including financial investment
Currently, ICE argues that the number of medical visits, procedures and overall medical budget ($100 million) demonstrate a high degree of care for detainees. But these details tell us nothing about key factors in care delivery, including delays in treatment and the nature of visits. Several detainee deaths involved delays in care and the explosive increase in immigration detainees has outpaced increases in medical spending. Moreover, $100 million may be a low health carebudget for a system that detains 300,000 people per year. By comparison, Rikers Island Jail in New York City detains roughly half the people annually and on any given day that ICE detains but has spent over $100 million annually on healthcare for over a decade for a population that is generally detained for less time than ICE detainees. Without transparency from ICE on basic health outcomes or costs, ICE’s raw expenditures tell us little about the efficacy of this system of care We believe that the most basic principles of decency and sound medical practice demand that an adequate standard of health care for detainees be legally mandated aggressively enforced and that basic health outcomes among detainees be reported for evaluation outside ICE
Unfortunately, the present response of ICE to the overwhelming evidence of inhumanehealthcare for detainees shows that officials are more concerned with public relations than confronting the grim medical reality suffered daily by immigrants in detention

Table 1.

2006 THE STATS SHOW THAT DEATH IN ICE CUSTODY RATES INCREASED 29% IN 2007 OVER 2006. WHAT ABOUT 2008?

Religious Aid given at McHenry Co. Immigration jail.

A mission shared, a flock divided by Greg Trotter JUNE 2008

WOODSTOCK, ILL. –

The eight men in the orange jumpsuits were white, black, brown and Asian. They filed into the classroom quietly for the weekly service, each one earnestly shaking the Rev. Jim McLoughlin’s hand on the way in. McLoughlin handed out Bibles, in Spanish and English, as they sat in the blue plastic chairs tucked behind the metal folding tables. The prison guard shifted his weight by the door. Six of the men in the jumpsuits came from different countries. Different continents even. They did not all speak English or understand every word of McLoughlin’s sermon about Judas and Matthias, a gentle lecture on betrayal, redemption and the arduous path of following the Gospel. They prayed with their heads bowed down to their chests. A few of them clutched their hands to their foreheads, rocking back and forth, their faces strained with emotion. Two of the men prayed out loud for mercy, justice and self-control. In that small, stuffy prison classroom in Woodstock, Ill., those six men were a long way from home. As of May 2008, around 260 of the McHenry County Correctional Facility’s 424 prisoners were immigrant detainees. McHenry and the Tri-County Detention Center, in southern Illinois, are the state’s two jails to have such an arrangement with the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. There are more than 300 state and county facilities in the country used by ICE for detention purposes.

Nationally, there are about 31,000 ICE detainees in custody, (as told to the author, in June 2008, I was one of them) up from 18,500 in 2005, according to ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro. They are a mix of criminals, asylum seekers and people who have spent much of their lives toiling on American soil and contributing to society.

They are Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Baha’i, Christians, Jews and more – people of many faiths and nations, locked away from their families for days, weeks and sometimes years until their citizenship status is determined.

 “There’s a profound sense of isolation for the detainees,” McLoughlin said later in a phone interview, pointing out that most of them are much farther from their family and friends than the other inmates. “And spiritually, that is very hard on them.” How to best spiritually comfort and counsel the detainees through their difficult time is a contentious issue in Illinois. Activists and religious groups have championed a bill, now in the state senate, that would allow ministers greater access to the detainees. Opponents of the bill argue that increased access would mean greater costs and higher security risks. There have been tense rallies and heated testimony from the opposing sides.

At McHenry, the division is more subtle. Jail officials, aid workers and clergymen are working together to meet the detainees’ religious needs – with or without the bill – within reason. But there are varying perceptions on the progress of that mission and what needs to change. “Their needs are being met,” said the Rev. Michael Love, senior chaplain at McHenry since 2000 and pastor at Trinity Baptist Community Church in Crystal Lake. The ministry provided to the detainees has evolved over the years, Love said, and will continue to progress as more people volunteer to help. The jail ministry offers outreach service to the detainees’ families and weekly opportunities for multi-faith worship. The detainees can receive spiritual counseling at any time, he said, and it does not count against their regular visitation time. Though McLoughlin commends Love for his openness and commitment to improving the religious programs, his perception of the ministry’s progress was quite different. “Our access has been very limited,” said McLoughlin, who pastors at St. Joseph’s Church in nearby Richmond and has been visiting the jail for eight years. “And that hasn’t changed much over the years – it’s been very stagnant.”

The sustenance of faith Mohammad Azam Hussain, a 39-year-old Pakistani and devout Muslim, is a more impassioned detractor of McHenry’s ministerial efforts. Having spent about seven months in McHenry, starting in late 2005, Hussain speaks from personal experience. He was detained in ICE facilities for nearly three years, including stints in Tri-County and McHenry in Illinois, and Kenosha and, most recently, Dodge County in Wisconsin. Hussain was released from Dodge County in early June, according to his attorney, Geoffrey Heeren. No charges pend against him, though he must wear a bracelet for electronic monitoring. He was arrested after allegedly concealing his involvement with a volatile political party in Pakistan on his naturalization papers. He was taken from his home in Des Plaines, Ill., where he lived with his wife and 7-year-old daughter, and languished in detention facilities for close to four years, according to Heeren. Hussain’s extended detention represents a recent trend, Heeren said, in which detainees are being kept longer and longer in the jails. They have to worry about the possibility of years of incarceration on top of the fear of deportation.

Immigrants who are detained for years are the exception rather than the rule, according to ICE statistics. In 2007, the average time ICE detainees spent in prison was 37.5 days. In a phone interview in May while still detained, Hussain described McHenry as the least effective facility in meeting his religious needs. He repeatedly requested the Kosher diet, he said, because it was the closest option to the Halal diet of the Muslim faith. He was repeatedly denied, he said, despite filing more than 50 complaints.

(I CAN ATTEST THAT THE FOOD IS NOT FIT FOR ANIMALS – THE SIGNAGE ON THE WALLS STATE THAT YOU SHOULD EXPECT TO LOSE 15-20LBS DURING YOUR INCARCERATION – IF THE TYPICAL TIME IN DETENTION IS 37.5 DAYS, then someone locked up for say 108 DAYS like i was, shoudl expect to lose, 108/37.5 x 17lb, = 50.4lb, I was a healthy 118lb and 5.3.5 inches when locked up; so I would be, 118-50.4= DEAD by now if I had not had someone send me money for commissary, which is all chocolate and garbage like pepperoni….there was a pakistani girl released because after 18 mths, she was so thin she just wanted to die….and then they re-arrested her when she had regained her health, and they held her in McHenry again…..they told her to come and pick up her work permission, and so she went to their offices, and they rearrested her….)

“The food was horrible and the officials were ignorant,” Hussain said. He opted for the vegetarian diet because he was refused the Kosher, he said, which usually meant leftover mashed potatoes and sweet beans on a tray. Though ICE’s policy regarding religious dietary needs states that facilities are required to provide detainees “reasonable and equitable opportunity to observe their religious dietary practice,” Montenegro said in an email response, the Kosher meals are provided only to Jewish detainees. A Muslim detainee’s dietary options are the regular meals, which are pork-free, she said, and vegetarian.“They already have the Kosher meal that they give to Jewish inmates,” said Heeren, who works for the Legal Assistance Foundation for Metropolitan Chicago. “Why not give it to the Muslims who have similar dietary beliefs?” The food was not Hussain’s only qualm. He also had difficulty obtaining an Arabic Koran, he said, until a humanitarian aid worker from Chicago brought him one. Though Muslims were allowed to have congregational prayers once a week, there were no visiting Imams for religious counseling. As a result, his time at McHenry was, by far, the worst of his recent years of incarceration, he said.“My religion is all I have in here,” Hussain said, while locked up in Dodge. “It is what sustains me.”

Into the cellblock Every other Tuesday, 80-year-old David Warren (thank you David, I never met you but you are a human being who cares about others in this hellhole) of Crystal Lake visits the immigrant detainees at McHenry, trying to reach out to people like Hussain. His personal mission is to promote peace in the cellblocks and help ease the spiritual suffering of the detainees by providing religious materials and other humanitarian aid, such as ESL books and counseling. As a layperson of the Franciscan Order, he does not offer any sort of religious counseling but tries to put them in contact with ordained ministers of various faiths as requested. He also gives each new detainee a $10 check to put into their accounts. Though they may have money when they are arrested, Warren said, their money and possessions are put into a repository until they are released.

They usually spend the money he gives them to buy extra food or hygiene products at the commissary. His organization gives out about $18,000 a year, he said, money that is donated from various individuals and charities. “Our mission is to supplement the care that the jail provides,” said Warren, who operates as the primary missionary at McHenry for his order, when not running his woodshop or taking care of his wife who has Alzheimer’s.

In May, he showed up at McHenry at his designated time with a bag full of Bibles and Korans in English and Spanish. Slightly stooped from age, Warren wore a wooden cross and a look of disappointment as he waited for two people who had said they would help him. Finally, he decided he could not wait any longer and went in without them. He was led to the same small classroom where McLoughlin had celebrated Mass the week before. Warren was not pleased. “For seven years, we used to be able to go right into the cellblocks,” he said, “and it was much more effective.” Recently, he has had to conduct his mission in the classroom instead.

In the cellblock, Warren could meet the needs of a greater number of detainees, he said. Not as many detainees choose to meet with him in the classroom because they do not understand what his program is about. Moving them from the cellblock to the classroom, he said, also wastes a valuable portion of his allotted hour. The first small group brought into the classroom consisted of four women. Two of them spoke only Spanish. One middle-aged woman cried and clutched a tissue. After being gently asked, she told Warren that she was from India but had been in the United States for 18 years before her arrest. ( I knew this woman – Josie)

Warren led them through the “Peace Prayer of Saint Francis,” in English and Spanish, and offered them other religious materials. He wrote each person who had no money a check for $10. He urged them to be sisters to each other and asked if there was anything else that he could do. “Yeah, get us out of here,” said a stocky, bilingual Latina woman, laughing shortly. The next few groups to file into the classroom each had nine to 10 men, about half of whom did not speak English. Warren relied upon volunteer translators among the detainees to relay his message of peace and unity. He repeated his prayer, wrote checks and handed out religious materials. Some of them participated fully, bowing their heads during the prayer and saying the words aloud. Others stared off into space until Warren pulled out his checkbook. One Somali man was visibly angry but said he did not speak English when Warren inquired into his emotional state. At the end, after the last group returned to their cellblock, Warren appeared somewhat discouraged as he gathered his materials. “They are depressed, despondent and sometimes suicidal,” he said in a separate interview. “We have to get back into the cellblocks to really help them.”

Bridging the gap At the core of the conversation about how to meet the spiritual needs of the detainees are two words — access and resources. McLoughlin contends that more of both are needed. “I understand that jail policies change,” he said, “but the Catholic Church doesn’t change that much. It is a sacramental faith.” Due to limited access to a detainee population that has many Catholic faithful, he has been largely unable to administer sacraments, such as communion, confession and anointing of the sick. He believes the religious access bill would give clergy more freedom to engage in practices of faith. But McLoughlin also sees a need for more volunteer ministers, preferably bilingual, to serve the inmates at McHenry. He is currently working with the Diocese of Rockford, he said, to hire a bilingual priest to serve McHenry. He is also trying to arrange for Polish- and Spanish-speaking priests to visit and help Warren with his mission. “David Warren’s not going to be doing this forever,” he said. “We have to find some people to bridge the gap.”

Though Chaplain Love does not think the bill will affect much change at McHenry, he welcomes more religious workers to help tend to the various faiths represented among the detainees. Bilingual ministers, in particular, can always be put to good use, he said, to help get beyond cultural differences. “Once you get beyond the cultural differences, you start peeling the onion back,” Love said, smiling and miming the process with his hands, “you find all the same issues common to mankind.”

 j-trotter@northwestern.edu My thanks to Mr. Trotter for writing and p ublishing this article – Josie.

my thanks to Www.condron.us for this outlet.

Another Death at McHenry….

What Happened to Hassiba in a US Prison?

by Abdul Malik Mujahid

Hassiba BelBachir, 28, had come to America to live the American dream. But she died mysteriously in the US detention before she could ever experience it.

She was not serving time. She was not charged with any crime. She was put in detention to wait for an immigration hearing. She was found dead in less than ten days in a prison designed for hardcore criminals not for docile asylum seekers who are willing to do anything you ask as long as you let them stay in America.

While in Chicago for three months, she discovered that Spain had a possible job opportunity for her in her specialty, the Spanish language, which she majored in in a college in Spain. That’s where she was headed in early March 2005 when she was stopped by authorities in Britain. They found problems in her immigration papers.

In Britain, she was detained for one week and then sent back-not to Algeria-the land of her birth, nor France, the country of her passport. She was sent back to the United States.

Upon her arrival, BelBachir was detained by federal immigration authorities then transported to McHenry County Jail. It was there that she was found dead Thursday March 17, 2005.

BelBachir’s sister, who lives in Canada, was told about her death on Friday. She wanted to come immediately to take care of funeral arrangements. However, US immigration officials asked her not to come until Monday.

BelBachir’s body was handed over to her sister on Tuesday March 22, 2005. On Wednesday, her funeral took place at the Muslim Community Center in Chicago. The following day, her body was shipped with her sister to Algeria, the land she wanted to leave behind, a land of trouble where people had not been able to hold elections to determine how they will run their affairs. That was the end of the loop for Hassiba BelBachir on this earth. We pray that her sins are forgiven and she enters Jannah for the pains suffered on this earth. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun. To Allah we belong and to Him we return.

Inconsistent explanations

The issue doesn’t end there though. There are many holes in the story of Hassiba BelBachir’s death. Prison officials claim she committed suicide after a bout of depression. Her family strongly disagrees.

A few hours before her death, she spoke to her sister in Canada, who says she was her usual self. She was not depressed. She was neither crying nor upset. As the conversation ended, she told her sister that she would call her again in the afternoon. But the afternoon never came for Hassiba.

Instead, the next day, after almost 24 hours, an immigration officer informed BelBachir’s sister of Hassiba’s death. Her sister and her cousin, who saw BelBachir’s body, are fully convinced that she did not commit suicide as prison officers are implying.

Prison officers have given conflicting information to the media about BelBachir’s death. Some said she killed herself with socks. Then they said she did it with pantyhose. They also claim she did not hang herself but strangled herself on the prison floor. They have also claimed she was being treated for depression and that she had tried to commit suicide only days before her death. But there are major problems with these statements.

First, she spoke to her sister the morning before her death and was perfectly healthy. She was not depressed.

Second, it is impossible for anyone to commit suicide by strangling themselves with socks considering their small size and elasticity. Also, humans are incapable of suffocating themselves, since the body’s natural response is to fight back and not allow that to happen.

Also, BelBachir could not have used pantyhose to strangle herself because pantyhose is prohibited in the US prison system.

Third, if she tried to commit suicide three days before her death, why was she not put under a suicide watch? Why was her family not informed about this? If she was under suicide watch, then what kind of mental health was provided to her? Are the county jails in the Midwest equipped to handle the mental health of asylum seekers and illegal aliens who are kept there? Do they have the proper language skills and cultural training for this?

In addition, if BelBachir was under suicide watch, how was she able to commit suicide while somebody was watching her?

Those who have seen her body believe suicide is not the truth. If Hassiba BelBachir did not commit suicide, who killed her and why? And why is the prison system giving out conflicting stories to different media organizations? Why did they not themselves announce the death to the media? Why did they tell the family the autopsy report would not be available for six to eight weeks?

Women in American prisons

According to a Amnesty International USA report, there are 148,200 women in state and federal prisons. In federal women‘s correctional facilities, 70 percent of guards are male. Records show correctional officials have subjected female inmates to rape, other sexual assault, sexual extortion, and groping during body searches. Male correctional officials watch women undressing, in the shower or the toilet. Male correctional officials retaliate, often brutally, against female inmates who complain about sexual assault and harassment.

At this moment, we don’t know how many Muslim women are in the prison system, but they are certainly subject to similar types of challenges as other female prisoners and perhaps more because of their religion and culture. They have to struggle with cultural unfamiliarity with the prison system, as well as a lack of ability to speak the language if they do not speak English. Women are rarely involved in crimes in Muslim world and hardly ever placed in prison.

It has been reported that there are dozens of women in the same prison where Hassiba BelBachir was found dead.

The questions about McHenry County Jail

BelBachir was detained not in a federal prison where normally, immigration violators are kept. She was guilty of no crime. She was simply waiting for a hearing before a judge to determine her immigration status.

She was sent to McHenry County Jail in Illinois, which houses several immigrants women. Immigrants and human rights advocates have twice in the past requested the Homeland Security department, asking officials to conduct an audit of this facility because of several complaints about how they treat immigrants waiting for their hearings. So far, Homeland Security has not conducted that audit.

Abusing Muslims in Prison is a Pattern

If the Inspector General of the US Justice Department is to be believed, this is what Muslim prisoners are facing in the prison system at this moment. The situation for them is exceptionally harsh and many times without reason they are kept in solitary confinement, subject to verbal and other forms of physical abuse. In his March 11, 2005 report the Inspector General even complains that the Justice department is not taking any action to implement his recommendations.

Abuse in the US prison system is not new. Darryl Hunt, a death row inmate in North Carolina, told this author that after seeing photos of abuse in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, “I thought these were photos of prisons in North Carolina.” It took Darryl Hunt 18 years to get released for a crime he did not commit.

While many government institutions have been a cause of the problem of what Muslims are facing, some are still working to remedy that and one of these is the Inspector General of the Justice Department.

Hassiba’s story is not an isolated one. In the last two months in Chicago, five Muslims have died unnatural deaths. One cab driver was brutally murdered in front of thirteen people by a passenger who used his own cab to drive over his body more than three times; three young Muslims were killed by a drunk police officer who reportedly is now walking free, probably on bond. Now we encounter BelBachir’s death.

The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago is pursuing both the case of the murdered cab driver case and now that of Hassiba BelBachir to make sure that justice is done. But this violence against Muslims seems like a pattern and is symptomatic of what the Muslim community has been suffering since the 9/11 terror attacks.

9/11 and its repercussions

Since 9/11, Muslims in America have been suffering as a result of government policies as well as rampant discrimination against Muslims.

A Zogby survey as well as a number of community and human rights organizations have determined that 26 percent of Muslims have bore the brunt of the anti-Muslim backlash post-9/11. Those Muslims who have been the victims of public policies represent a large number, but statistics are difficult to come by since former US Attorney General John Ashcroft asked federal, state and city law enforcement not to issue data about this. Based on whatever data was issued or compiled by other organizations, the number of Muslims affected by government policies is over 200,000 in the US.

Immigrants in America are now the most vulnerable

The people worst affected by 9/11 remain new immigrants. Those who have suffered are people who have had some mistake or problems with their immigration papers, but who have not been convicted of any crime.

But statistics are one thing. The human face of this impact is incredibly sad and people continue to suffer. At least 18,000 Muslims have been deported in the last couple of years. The actual number of people who fled and sought asylum in Canada or abandoned their green cards and went back to their home countries is far higher.

The Washington Post reports at least 15,000 out of a community of 120,000 have fled from Brooklyn, New York alone (see “An Exodus Grows in Brooklyn: 9/11 Still Rippling Through Pakistani Neighborhood,” Washington Post, May 29, 2003; Page A01).

Similarly, due to immigrant flight business on Chicago’s Devon Avenue, the largest South Asian neighborhood in the Midwest, is down by 40 to 50 percent, with dozens of companies shutting down.

If the figure of 15,000 Pakistanis who fled from New York is correct, then it is possible that all immigrants from the 25 targeted countries who returned to their own countries or fled to other ones may be even higher than 50,000.

Unlike Japan and Germany, who are facing major labor problems, America so far has been able to balance its population and future labor needs for both skilled and unskilled workforce with the help of immigration.

If immigrants are hunted down by vigilantes on the US-Mexico border and because of their faith and skin color on the Canadian border, as well as the US landing points, we may soon face the challenges Japan and Germany are facing today.

General abuse in the US prison system

Prison is designed to be tough. It’s punishment although at some level, it’s also supposed to be a corrective measure, hence the term “correctional facility” for it. However, abuse of authority makes it worse. Perhaps it is no surprise that one of the soldiers guilty of abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison was himself a prison guard.

According to a Human Rights Watch report, “in recent years, U.S. prison inmates have been beaten with fists and batons, stomped on, kicked, shot, stunned with electronic devices, doused with chemical sprays, choked, and slammed face first onto concrete floors by the officers whose job it is to guard them. Inmates have ended up with broken jaws, smashed ribs, perforated eardrums, missing teeth, burn scars-not to mention psychological scars and emotional pain. Some have died.”

We can end tragedies like the death of Hassiba BelBachir by persistence. We must continue to ask questions and investigate. We must not allow her death to go unnoticed and unexplained. This is the best way to prevent such incidents in the future.

What you can do about it:

The Council of Islamic organizations of Greater Chicago has demanded that the Inspector General of the Homeland Security investigate this case since she was in their detention.

• You can volunteer with the Council to work on the case.
• Connect with immigrant rights, civil rights, prisoners’ rights and human rights groups requesting them to take interest in this case.
• Ask your mosque and your organization what they are doing to protect people who are most vulnerable in our society.
• Pray that other Hassibas of the world remain safe and free.

Immigration Detainee Stories – Pong Young, are you still alive?

www.josieg6.wordpress.com www.condron.us http://www.condron.us/

Pong Young was an elderly Korean woman, stuck in McHenry Immigration jail. She had entered US in approx 1960′s, married to her African American GI husband. He took her to live in a poor black neighborhood in Chicago, and he joined the police force. She said didn’t speak english, and the neighbors hated her, they called her names, and attacked and beat her; she showed me scars and that she lost some of her teeth this way. She told her husband, and he wanted to fight with them, but she begged him not to, as she was afraid he would be killed. After that she either stayed in the house all the time or he drove her to and from work at a grocery store. She only had contact with his family, his sister and mother, who were not pleased that she was Korean. She eventualy worked in the Chicago School system in the Kitchens for nine years.

She said they tried for a baby, she miscarried four times. She said the fifth time she was pregnant she lifted a heavy pan at work, and felt a terrible pain, she went home to lie down. When Terry got home, she got up and she said the baby came out, and died on the floor, at about 5 months. She said Terry took her to the hospital and they gave her emergency surgery. She said she could not have children after that. She said the pain was so bad, that she went to a chinese doctor, who prescribed herbs, she did not know she was taking opium pills, and became addicted. This led to heroin addiction. Terry was drinking a lot, and his health was going down. They were a mess, this went on for a few years. She said her purse was stolen and she lost her green card in it, so she went to get it replaced and a woman at Immigration asked for $100.0 to replace it. Pong got the feeling something wasnt right, so she left and did not try to replace it again.

She said she was arrested when she was sitting in the car with Terry, and the police made it a dealing charge, and so she went to jail as a dealer. She said the heroin she had was for personal use. She did her time in jail, knowing that Terry as an alcoholic with diabetes, was not doing well without her to take care of him. She said he was in a wheelchair now. She waited to be released to go home to help him, they had been married for thirty years, but at the end of her sentence, she was taken from jail to Immigration Jail, to be deported to Korea. Because she now had a conviction, she was stripped of her green card rights. When they took her from jail to Immigration court for a hearing, she had a heart attack in the van on the way, and was hospitalised overnight.

She was terrified Terry would die without her, she was right, he tried to visit her in jail, but the doors were not wide enough for his wheelchair, and the guards would not assist him so she was denied the visit. She tried to reach him by phone, but he had been taken to hospital becuase of his diabetes, she found out what hospital he was in but could not call him from the jail. He went into a coma. He came out of it, and he called her in the jail, but they would not let her take the call, they just told her that he had called. The guards were very unhelpful in finding the right number/address for the jail so she could contact him. They don’t have to give a damn that someone is dying, in or out of the jail. His family were not trying to help them. They had never liked the fact that he had married a Korean woman. She told me she dreamed he was dying without her, she could hear him calling to her for help. She heard that he had come out of the coma and was trying to get on his feet/walk in the hospital, so he could come to see her in the jail.

From jail, she filed for asylum, as in marrying Terry and moving to the States, she had also fled communism and torture in North Korea. The judge at the hearing asked her for more evidence, which an inmate in jail with no support has no way to get. Like a miracle there was an article in the one newspaper we were allowed to read, that covered the conditions in North Korea at the time she left there. She held on to it for the judge at the next hearing.

She was woken in the night, and the guard told her she was going home. She was so excited, she left all of her papers, medical reports evidence and documents in her cell. They held her downstairs, cuffed and shacked her, and put her in the van. They drove her around until 4pm next day. They then led her into a place, she said ‘where is this?’ They said it was a funeral home, she got to see her husband of thirty years, Terry, lying in a Box.

She said he looked like he did thirty years ago, young and smooth skinned. They told her she could not touch him. She was returned to the jail with us at about 7pm. The guard told me to take care of her, they had given her something to make her sleep. We put her in her bunk (we are not allowed to into the cell, so we all watched to make sure she did not fall as she went that last few feet.)

The guard the night before had thrown away everything in her cell. All her medical records, evidence and documents were gone. All her soap, shampoo and bits were gone.

After this, Pong lost interest in life, she only wanted to play a Board game, called ‘Sorry.’  We played with her as much as we could. We called her sister-in-law, who said Pong could stay with them when she got out. The sister in law needed to sign a paper for the asylum to be her sponsor. She never mailed it back, as Pong said, now his family can claim Terry’s military and Police pensions, as Pong will be deported to Korea, a country where she has no one and nothing. Terry was her life and this had killed both of them now.

U.S. Government, State of California, Others Sued in Immigration Detainee Neglect Case

U.S. Government, State of California, Others Sued in Immigration Detainee Neglect Case

 

Francisco Castaneda, the Salvadoran immigrant who in October told a House subcommittee his tragic story of medical neglect at the hands of federal immigration officials, filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Government, the State of California and several federal officials on Oct. 31.

 

Mr. Castaneda suffered egregious neglect while in detention from December 2005 to February of this year. Lesions on his penis were ignored for so long that a cancer metastasized and, earlier this year, Mr. Castaneda’s penis was removed in an effort to save his life.

 

“I’m filing this lawsuit today for justice – not just for me, but for all of the detainees who are being ignored when their health or even their lives are on the line,” Castaneda said.

 

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, charges that authorities’ refusal to provide reasonable and humane medical care to Castaneda “was tantamount to torture.” It notes that the 35-year-old man vainly pleaded for a biopsy, as recommended by state, federal and private doctors. “He was denied medical treatment that would have prevented his penile cancer from spreading and becoming terminal,” the complaint says.

 

Public Justice, the nationwide public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C., and Conal Doyle of Willoughby Doyle in Oakland, Calif., represent Castaneda in the case. Public Justice Staff Attorney Adele Kimmel said the lawsuit seeks to hold the federal and state governments accountable for abdicating their responsibility to Castaneda.

 

“We hope that, by exposing the federal government’s inhumane treatment of immigration detainees like Mr. Castaneda, we can help to change a system that is severely broken,” said Kimmel. “The policies and practices of the Division of Immigration and Health Services have made it nearly impossible for detainees to get adequate medical care. This lawsuit is a reminder that providing that care is a constitutional requirement.”

 

Castaneda was released from a federal detention center in San Diego in February – just before a scheduled biopsy that federal officials would have been billed for if Castaneda had still been in custody. He took himself to an emergency room and was diagnosed with invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the penis, which was amputated on Feb. 14. Since then, Castaneda has undergone chemotherapy for the cancer, which has spread. His prognosis is poor.

 

“Government officials imposed a death sentence on Mr. Castaneda, without the benefit of judge or jury, by their failure to provide a simple and inexpensive diagnostic procedure to rule out a life-threatening disease,” Doyle said. “This is a tragic case that could have been prevented by the exercise of basic human decency.”

 

Castaneda was one of three witnesses who shared their detention horror stories with a House Immigration subcommittee hearing on Oct. 4. The other two were relatives of detainees who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.

 

Castaneda, who has a 14-year-old daughter, said that although his situation is dire, he hopes it will bring attention to needed reforms in detainee treatment and care.

 

“I’m just glad to be in a country where getting justice is possible,” he said.

US to probe death of immigration detainee

US to probe death of immigration detainee – Sister says police refused Medicine for Milford man

Credit for story to: Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff  | August 9, 2007

A Brazilian national arrested Tuesday afternoon on a deportation warrant in Rhode Island died shortly after he was taken into federal custody, outraging family members who said authorities ignored their warnings that he had epilepsy and needed to take his medication daily.

Edmar Alves Araujo, 34, of Milford, called his sister to say he had been detained by local police after a traffic stop. Irene Araujo said she immediately brought his medication, Gardenal, to Woonsocket police headquarters, where he was being held, only to be turned away by officers who refused to accept it.

“I told them he needed the medication, and I told them he had seizure problems,” Irene Araujo said yesterday. “He can’t skip a day without medication.”

According to Irene Araujo’s account, authorities told her that if her brother had a medical condition, he could inform them himself. She said that officers then ignored her repeated pleas that it was urgent.

“They didn’t give me a chance to show them or nothing,” she said. “They didn’t say anything.”

A spokeswoman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency confirmed yesterday that Edmar Araujo died Tuesday while in federal custody. But she declined to comment on the family’s assertion that authorities were warned of Araujo’s epilepsy and his need for Gardenal, a phenobarbital-based drug that helps control seizures in epileptics.

The spokeswoman, Paula Grenier, could not say if any policy would prevent the transfer of medication to a detainee.

“The well-being of our detainees is of paramount concern,” she said.

Grenier said state and federal authorities will investigate the death, but she could not say which agencies would be involved. Officials from the Rhode Island State Police and the state attorney general’s office said yesterday that they were not investigating Araujo’s death.

Woonsocket police did not respond to repeated requests by the Globe for comment.

Irene Araujo said her brother had lived in the United States for more than five years. He had a 13-year-old son who lives in Italy, and he was working at a gas station and as a painter in Milford, she said, adding that he would send money to their 65-year-old mother in Brazil to help her pay bills.

“He was my mother’s support,” she said.

Araujo called her mother last night to say that Edmar had died.

Irene Araujo said her brother was driving to Woonsocket to visit her Tuesday when he was apparently pulled over for a traffic violation. Federal agents picked up Araujo at the Woonsocket police station at 3 p.m., on a deportation warrant from 2002, according to Grenier. She said she didn’t know why he was initially arrested.

Grenier said Araujo was being processed at the immigration agency’s Office of Detention and Removal in Providence when he showed signs of distress. She said emergency crews were notified and immigration officers attended to him until an ambulance arrived. He was pronounced dead at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence at 4:18 p.m.

Irene Araujo, who speaks English with a Portuguese accent, said that after she was turned away on Tuesday, she asked police in Milford, where officers speak Portuguese, to relay her concerns to Woonsocket police. In addition, she said, a friend tried to bring the medication to authorities yesterday morning, only to learn that Araujo had died.

Because family members fear reprisal due to their immigration status, they were reluctant to complain directly to authorities yesterday.

Instead, a Woonsocket businessman who employed another Araujo relative has spoken to federal authorities on their behalf.

Vera Dias-Freitas, a community advocate from Framingham, said Irene Araujo contacted her after being turned away at the Woonsocket police station.

Dias-Freitas questioned why authorities would not respond to the sister’s concerns.

“It’s a human thing,” Dias-Frietas said. “I think people forget to think we are human.”

Shuya Ohno, of the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said the death highlights the ongoing concerns of immigrant-rights groups about the immigration agency’s treatment of detainees.

“This is a story we hear all the time. They don’t let people get their medication,” he said. “What should be shocking news isn’t that shocking.”

Correction: Because of incorrect information provided to the Globe, a Page One story and a photo caption yesterday misspelled the first name of Edimar Alves Araujo, an immigrant from Brazil who died in federal custody Tuesday in Rhode Island.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

My thanks to the Boston Globe – Josie.

 

How a Green Card Applicant can die during the Immigration Process.

People trying to emigrate to America legally are being arrested in their homes during the waiting process, shoved into filthy jails, denied medical care and sometimes even allowed to die during detention…..and nobody understands why.

By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: February 10, 2009

The widow and children of a Chinese man who died of cancer in immigration custody last summer filed suit in federal court in Providence, charging that detention center guards broke his spine days before his death, then taunted him as he screamed in agony. The civil suit, brought by the family of Hiu Lui Ng with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, names numerous defendants, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation, owner of the jail where Mr. Ng spent his last month, and where federal investigators found he was denied adequate medical care.

U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
Published: January 15, 2009

Federal immigration officials investigating the death of a New York computer engineer from China who died in their custody last summer said Thursday that supervisors at a Rhode Island detention center had denied the ailing man appropriate medical treatment on multiple occasions and that employees had dragged him from his cell to a van as he screamed in pain.
The Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., a locally owned jail where Hiu Lui Ng spent his final month.

As they disclosed their findings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered an end to their contract with the center, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., a locally owned jail where the engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, spent his final month after a year in immigration detention. They said they had asked that the United States attorney in Boston review the case for possible criminal prosecution.

The federal investigation began last summer, soon after The New York Times reported on the death of Mr. Ng, 34. His extensive cancer and fractured spine had gone undiagnosed, despite his pleas for help, until shortly before he died in custody on Aug. 6.

Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the federal agency, said the investigation showed that supervisors at the Wyatt detention center had in effect prevented Mr. Ng from meeting with his lawyer by refusing him the use of a wheelchair when he was too ill and in too much pain to walk.

The 33-page investigation report also found that the guards and medical staff, acting on orders of the warden, violated the jail’s policy on the use of force when Mr. Ng was dragged to a van for a trip to Hartford, where his lawyers say he was pressured to withdraw all his appeals and accept deportation.

The jail’s overhead surveillance video cameras captured everything. But another, hand-held camcorder turned on and off 13 times at a signal from the captain in charge, according to the report, created another version of the episode, apparently in an effort to document that Mr. Ng was faking his illness and refusing to go to the hospital for a CT scan.

Investigators interviewed 158 people in the course of their inquiry, but the surveillance videotapes clearly told them most of what they needed to know. At one point, they wrote, the captain cursed Mr. Ng, calling him an idiot, and ordered him to “stop whining.”

Mr. Ng kept saying that he could not walk, begged for a wheelchair, and “continued to scream,” the report said, as he was pulled under his armpits from his bed, and to another part of the jail to be shackled.

John J. McConnell Jr., the lawyer representing Mr. Ng’s family in a planned lawsuit against the jail and the federal immigration agency, called the report “damning” but added that the investigating agency shared the blame because Mr. Ng “should not have been detained in the first place.”

“The people involved in that torturous treatment,” he said, “should be ashamed of themselves.”

Dante Bellini, a spokesman for Wyatt, called the results of the investigation “disappointing.” Last month, citing its investigation, the immigration agency removed all of its detainees from Wyatt.

“We will continue to look at ways to reverse this,” Mr. Bellini said. “We will continue to look at all our options and filling our beds. But we will steadfastly maintain that we had nothing to do with the detainee’s death.”

Last week, Wyatt announced that it was punishing seven employees in connection with the case, with penalties ranging from termination to reprimand. “We took stern and appropriate action,” Mr. Bellini said.

Mr. Ng, who had no criminal record, overstayed a visa years ago and had been applying for a green card through his wife, a United States citizen, when he was taken into detention in July 2007 and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.

One of the most harrowing parts of the federal report is its detailed description of the videos made as Mr. Ng was forcibly taken from his cell to a van.

The tape from the hand-held camcorder begins with the captain’s instructing Mr. Ng that “he needed to move on his own,” telling him he would not be given a wheelchair and repeatedly ordering him to stand up.

“Mr. Ng was visibly crying and appeared to have difficulty standing,” the report said, adding that the captain then appeared to signal the officer holding the camcorder to stop recording.

“Mr. Ng asked captain to believe him that he could not move his legs,” the report went on. As he struggled to put on his shoes, apparently in pain, the captain urged him to hurry up. When Mr. Ng told a nurse that he wanted to go to the hospital to take the medical test to determine the cause of his pain and disability, but needed a wheelchair, she was dismissive: “She stated that he could go; he was just refusing to go.”

A Jamaican Green Card holder winds up in Immigration Jail after thirty years..

Margaret Thompson is a Jamaican citizen who lived in the USA on a valid green card for 30 years, she had eight US citizen children, and nine us citizen grandchildren, with whom she spent all of her time, when not working in the Church charity shop. On her return from a family vacation in Jamaica, they took her green card from her. A few months later, she called Immigration, and was told to come in and get it. She was arrested under a law brought in in approx 2001-2, allowing them to arrest any green card holder who had ever had a criminal conviction, even if it was past and served/spent, and they put her in filthy immigration jail.

So – the green card was issued to her when she was 17, she committed a crime years later, admitted guilt and served time, even getting out after five months for good behavior, then years after that, after all those years, kids and grand kids, because of the above new retroactive law, she was stripped of her green card, held in jail, and set for deportation, unable to come home to her family in Chicago for 20 years.

I was in McHenry County Jail with Margaret for four months; she was coming up on a year in that filthy Immigration jail. She was fighting for a pardon from Governor Rod Blagojevich (!!) for this past crime that she served time for years ago, so she could get back to her ordinary life as a grandmother in Chicago, where she had lived for thirty years.

Last I saw Margaret, she was still shivering in this filthy jail. Last I saw Blagojevich, he was being busted by the Feds for corruption, so I think he was too busy to sign Margaret’s pardon so she could go home to her kids and grand kids. (conversely, Slick Rick the Rapper, who served time for murder in New York, was given a Pardon by the New York Governor, so he could keep his green card.)

Last I saw Julie Myers, former Head of ICE, I was asking her to look into my case. One day hopefully someone will look closely at Ms. Myers conduct in office. She may wind up sitting next to A-Rod. There has not been one executive in industry (exception, Nancy Koenig, I was her admin assistant) that I have supported that has not been questioned by the Feds, but all can afford the very best attorneys, unlike immigrants.

Get the details on “>Wikipedia“>Ms. Myers and the questions about her fitness for the job as Head of ICE, at wikipedia. Ms. Myers decided the best way to have the best record of deportations was, instead of going after criminal aliens, who can be hard to catch, to go after everyone on the waiting list, who was waiting at home for a letter from Immigration. (Of course they got me at home, I was not a ‘fugitive alien’ – I have been waiting by the mailbox for twenty years.)

Her agents were sent to terrorize and destroy the lives of hopeful immigrants who have been waiting YEARS for their legitimate papers, by dragging them from their homes or legitimate places of work, and holding them as ‘flight risks’ – what crap and what a waste of my tax dollars. If I had known they were doing this, I would have given up and gone elsewhere in the world.

 

How to Emigrate to America….or not.

For the whole background on how I know these details, read my story at www.josieg6.wordpress.com. And send it on to a friend, thanks!!

McHenry Jail IL is absolutely filthy and freezing, when you flush the toilet, it comes up in the drinking water. I am still covered in an unknown lumpy skin rash, 3 courses of antibiotics and antiviral drugs have not worked. I am in the process of medical testing here in the UK to find out the underlying cause. McHenry Immigration Detention center violates every legal standard and many CDC and EPA rules. I have written detailed complaints to the CDC and EPA and I sent detailed reports of conditions and abuses to my attorney. Detainees have rights, like phone calls etc, BUT you are denied every one of them. If you demand your legal rights, you are locked in your cell for days. The abuse is constant. I was kept awake for days at a time to make me fill out a passport application. I witnessed and documented many abuses.

I was a witness that they nearly Killed Susamma Matthews, from India. Like me, and like Jason Ng, she was waiting for a letter from Immigration. She and her son were arrested and detained. They ask for all of your medications, when you are arrested, then they take them, and you don’t get them; if you really push you are given ‘substitute’ medications…these made Susamma very sick. She had diabetes and high blood pressure. She was woken in the night for blood pressure checks, so the readings would be low…and for blood sugar after she ate, so it would look normal. She got a urine infection, this progressed to a Kidney infection – she was shaking in pain, and had lost 10 pounds in ten days…her son was also in custody, her other son is a US Citizen in Florida, he was running around getting another petition together for her…she could not get out of bed, I was disciplined for bringing her water to drink – I made anon calls to the OIG hotline from McHenry, after 3 weeks of this, they came to get her, she couldn’t walk, with another inmate we got her down the stairs, when we got her to the door, they realized that we inmates weren’t going to be allowed to ‘carry her’ so the guard (6ft 4 carrying her pillow case) complained that someone needed to bring a wheelchair…she was taken up to medical, she said they treated her better, IV drugs for 10 days at least…she and I were both told that our requests for stay of removal were denied on 6/30; I know mine didn’t even arrive in their offices until 6/31!! She said she was told that hers was denied because they had already purchased the ticket to fly her home…that day she returned to the day room, finally walking again, that night she was taken at 4am to go to the airport….They do this because they do not want you to die in custody.

Got a true detainee story? Send it to Josieg6@hotmail.com

wonder what the statistics are…

After Ms. Julie Myers short tenure in Office, overseeing the activity of ICE police, and their arrests of ‘fugitive’ aliens, (such as 30 year greencard holder grandmothers at home, etc…) I wonder what the statistics are for lawsuits now filed against ICE, I am guessing there is a large spike for the year 2008…..do these lawsuits settle out of court, are they counted, does the public ever hear about the florida grandmother held in a filthy Illinois jail for 90 days, as they tried to prove she was not a US Citizen…..or the young nurse born in Philadelphia, having a nervous breakdown becuase her judge can’t understand why she is in there, so they kept delaying her court….for months.