'Lost on their watch': Advocates sue private prison over transgender asylum-seeker's death

Daily Kos Staff

Friday May 15, 2020 · 11:28 AM PDT

2020/05/15 · 11:28

A member of the Pink Unity Collective holds a poster demanding justice in the death of Honduran transgender woman Roxana Hernandez, in San Pedro Sula, on June 3, 2018. - Hernandez, 33, died of pneumonia, dehydration and "complications associated with HIV," while in the custody of immigration authorities in the US state of New Mexico, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. (Photo by Orlando SIERRA / AFP) (Photo credit should read ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP via Getty Images) — An advocate holds a photo of Roxsana Hernández, who died while in ICE custody in 2018.

Advocates including the Transgender Law Center (TLC) have sued private prison profiteer CoreCivic and a number of private companies for the 2018 death of Roxsana Hernández while in federal immigration custody, alleging “a failure on the part of named entities to provide adequate medical care, sufficient food, water, access to a restroom, and an opportunity to sleep even though Roxsana was visibly and symptomatically ill,” a statement said.

“Every private entity tasked with Roxsana’s care failed her,” TLC staff attorney Dale Melchert said in the statement. “What we know about the short time that Roxsana was in immigration custody is that the officers tasked with transporting her saw her health deteriorate, heard her cries for help, and did nothing. She needlessly suffered as a result of their inaction.”

Hernández, who had been a part of the so-called “caravan” of Central American asylum-seekers demonized by impeached president Donald Trump in 2018, died at a New Mexico hospital while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in May of that year. Her advocates have long said her death could have been prevented if she’d received speedy medical attention, something now reiterated in the litigation against Management & Training Corporation, LaSalle Corrections, Global Precision Systems, TransCor America, and CoreCivic.

“Despite Roxsana visibly exhibiting symptoms of distress associated with her serious medical condition throughout her four-state journey—including nausea, vomiting, fever, diarrhea, and severe fatigue—and the persistent entreaties by Roxsana and those with whom Roxsana travelled, these contractors charged with her custody failed or refused to render her the timely care and intervention she required,” TLC, the Law Office of R. Andrew Free, and the Law Office of Daniel Yohalem said in court documents.

“Further, the defendants ignored the pleas of fellow asylum seekers who expressed concern for Roxsana’s condition,” the groups continued in the statement. The court document says that because Roxsana’s “persistent pleas” went ignored, “she arrived at [CoreCivic’s Cibola County Correctional Center] in septic shock, dehydrated, severely tachycardic, medically starving, febrile, and in the early stages of multiple organ failure. Simply put: Roxsana was in no condition to be transported or temporarily detained any where, and Defendants are liable for the suffering and death they caused as a result of choosing to do so notwithstanding her obvious, serious, and emergent medical needs.”

We’d know a lot more about her final days if officials at Cibola hadn’t deleted surveillance footage that they’d clearly been instructed to preserve. "It's completely ridiculous to suggest they didn't know they were supposed to preserve critical video footage—the most basic thing you do when there's some type of investigation, or you expect to be sued," Melchert said at the time according to BuzzFeed News. Following the report, legislators including Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Kamala Harris and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus called for further investigation. Advocates last year also filed a complaint holding the federal government responsible for her death.

“CoreCivic, La Salle, and Management & Training Corporation, along with the other private companies named in our lawsuit receive federal funds in exchange for overseeing all the mechanisms that make our cruel system of immigration incarceration possible,” Free said in the statement. “Through our investigation into Roxsana’s death we’ve learned that these companies violated their federal agency contracts, their own standards of care, Roxsana’s rights, as well as the standards of care in the various states Roxsana travelled through.”

“It’s horrifying that nearly two years after Roxsana’s death, they’re still receiving federal funds without any accountability for the many lives that have been lost on their watch,” he continued.

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