Yoel Alonso Leal is so sick he may not survive the plane ride that returns him to Cuba should his deportation proceed, but federal immigration officials are so far refusing to budge. “There is a high chance that he would die from the flight itself,” said Kiersta Kurtz-Burke of Louisiana State University’s School of Medicine. “Deportation for him would be deadly.”
The asylum-seeker’s health has been deteriorating while he’s been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody; he is suffering from gout and pneumonia. Now “doctors who reviewed Leal’s medical records say there is a tumor in his lung based on ‘radiographic findings significantly concerning for lung cancer.’” Leal has been held for months now, and because he doesn’t have a criminal record, he could be released to his family for proper medical care, but on that officials are also refusing to budge.
“Leal is one of a dozen plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the near-blanket denial of parole to asylum seekers held in detention in ICE’s New Orleans Office’s jurisdiction, which includes Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama,” NOLA.com reports. Earlier this month, a judge sided with Leal and the other plaintiffs, ordering ICE to review parole requests on a case-by-case basis, as they’re supposed to.
But Truthout reports that the day after that decision, ”Leal learned that he could soon be deported, according to Julien Burns, a spokesman for the New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice, a group that organizes with immigrant communities.” Leal’s advocates now believe federal immigration officials are just rushing to deport him rather than having to release him, a decision that could kill him.
In a protest organized by the Congress of Day Laborers this week, dozens of demonstrators blocked a street in front of ICE’s New Orleans office to demand a stop to Leal’s deportation and that he be released. Some held signs reading, “No more family separation,” and others chanted, “A life is on the line.” His case has further earned the support of Democratic legislators such as Rep. Cedric Richmond, who agree that he should be released for proper treatment, and not the sad excuse for medical care ICE tries to prop up.
“This is horrible,” said Luz Lopez, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It’s as if he fled one horrible situation to come into another, escaping one government that tortured him to another government that seems ambivalent about what happens to him. The government just isn't following its own rules anymore when it comes to asylum seekers.”