The family of a transgender asylum-seeker who languished in federal immigration custody and was transferred to a hospital only after her condition had seriously deteriorated has filed a wrongful death and personal injury claim against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, and is seeking $20 million in damages.
Johana Medina died in a Texas hospital on June 1, where she had been transferred after being jailed at the Otero County Processing Center, NBC News reports. But Johana’s advocates say she had been sick for weeks, and her pleas for help had essentially been ignored by officers. She was a trained nurse, and her attorneys say she asked for an IV. “’When that request was denied, she requested water, sugar and salt to make her own solution,’ which was also denied, they wrote.”
She was taken to a hospital only when she was found unconscious. She would die there just a few days later. Even though advocates say it was ICE that denied her care, the agency is not considering her an “in-custody death” because officials released her when she was hospitalized. "What they did is they transported her to a hospital to absolve themselves of responsibility,” said attorney Chris Dolan.
She never should have been kept jailed in the first place: Asylum is legal immigration, and Johana had passed her initial asylum interview. ICE’s wretched treatment of Medina didn’t end at her death, either: Rewire’s Tina Vazquez reported that the agency deadnamed her in a statement regarding her death. NBC reported that “Medina Leon’s family believes her transgender identity ‘played an active role in the denial of her rights and mistreatment,’ lawyers wrote, adding that she was held in an all-male facility despite identifying as a woman.”
ICE isn’t the only federal immigration agency facing legal action over a migrant’s death. Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a $100 million claim against Border Patrol over the shooting death of Claudia Patricia Gómez González at the hands of an agent in May 2018. The agent, who has yet to be publicly named, claimed that she and others had attacked him. Lies. “The migrants interviewed by the Guardian denied having sticks or rocks, and said Claudia was unarmed, timid and scared.” She was just 20.
Medina had plainly stated that ICE was ignoring her, her sister Rocio told Telemundo. A total of 24 people have been officially noted as having died in ICE custody since the start of Donald Trump’s presidency, and the actual number is higher because, again, Medina’s death is not included in this tally. Johana Medina should be alive, and now ICE is despicably trying to wash its hands of its negligence.
