Twenty-four immigrants have died while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement since the start of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to an analysis of federal data by NBC News. This number does not include the children who have died after being taken into U.S. custody, nor does it include at least four other adults, like Johana Medina, who have died after being released from custody.
The 25-year-old transgender asylum-seeker died in a Texas hospital just days ago, after spending weeks in ICE custody in New Mexico. She was kept detained despite passing her initial asylum interview, and in a facility that had already been described as having "unconscionable conditions.” Her health deteriorated while in custody, and was only hospitalized after several weeks of complaints.
Rewire’s Tina Vazquez reports that because she died after immigration officials released her from custody, “Medina is not considered an in-custody death. There is a precedent for this, and some immigration advocates say it’s a ‘loophole being exploited.’” Medina is the second transgender asylum-seeker to die since last year, following the May 2018 death of Roxsana Hernández. Her independently run autopsy found that she likely languished without care for days.
“In December, an ICE supervisor warned that the ICE Health Service Corps, the agency's own medical service provider, was ‘severely dysfunctional’ and that ‘preventable harm and death to detainees has occurred,’ according to an internal memo sent to the now-Director of ICE, Matthew Albence,” NBC News continued. Johana, Roxsana, and others should still be alive.
An ICE spokesperson claimed that the agency "takes very seriously the health, safety and welfare of those in our care, including those who come into ICE custody with prior medical conditions or who have never before received appropriate medical care.” Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, because the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General just released a report describing “egregious violations” at detention facilities, including "nooses in detainee cells,” "inadequate medical care,” and rotting food.
“What we're seeing is a reckless and unprecedented expansion of a system that is punitive, harmful and costly,” said Katharina Obser of the Women's Refugee Commission. “The U.S. government is not even doing the bare minimum to ensure [immigrants] are getting the medical care and the mental health care they need." This is a crisis that will only worsen, because ICE is jailing a record number of people, nearly 53,000, and in defiance of limits set by Congress.
