Civil rights advocates last year pressed the federal government for internal documents into Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) pattern of releasing immigrants only when they’re deathly ill. This despicable practice not only absolves federal immigration officials of having to further care for sick immigrants, but also of having to officially report any resulting deaths.
The Los Angeles Times initially sued for information into abuses at immigration detention facilities the year prior, and has since received thousands of pages of documents, the outlet said. These documents confirm the fears expressed in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) action and by advocates: ICE prolongs the detention and suffering of immigrants, then rushes to get rid of them when they’re “on the edge of death,” the report said.
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The Los Angeles Times said emails reviewed by the outlet reveal that officials “moved with unusual speed” to release Johana Medina Leon, a Salvadoran transgender asylum-seeker who died after being held in ICE custody in 2019. Her advocates said she’d been sick for weeks, languishing in custody at the privately operated Otero County Processing Center. Only after she was found unconscious was she taken to a hospital, where she died.
”While it took six weeks and several visits with medical staff before she saw a doctor in detention, ICE expedited her release in less than six hours—relieving the agency of responsibility when she died four days later,” the report said. The internal emails reviewed by the Los Angeles Times acknowledge Medina Leon was seriously ill, noting she was “underweight” and experiencing poor vitals. “Could we please get detainee property for full release ready ASAP,” one officer wrote. The report said that an ICE agent noted that he’d never released anyone at a hospital before.
Medina Leon was not counted among the nine people who died while in ICE custody that year because she’d already been released. She was just 25.
“’Why is ICE choosing to release people from custody who are on their deathbeds while they’re hospitalized?’ said Eunice Cho, an attorney at the ACLU,” the report said. “’The impact is, of course, that ICE is then exempt from reporting requirements, investigation requirements and financial requirements from the deaths that have taken place’ as a result of inadequate healthcare.”
The ACLU’s action had noted the 2021 death of Martin Vargas Arellano, who died after contracting COVID-19 at the notorious Adelanto ICE Processing Center. Like in Medina Leon’s case, he was released only after his condition had worsened, and after his advocates had noted his preexisting conditions made him particularly vulnerable to severe illness. “After releasing him from custody, ICE did not report his death, and Vargas Arellano’s own family and counsel did not find out about his passing until weeks later, after they filed a missing person’s report,” the ACLU said at the time.
Not even children have been exempt from this practice: Mariee, who was 19 months old, got very ill while detained with her mom at a migrant family jail in Texas in 2018. Her mother struggled to get anyone in charge to properly examine her child, asking for medical help no fewer than five times. "After it became clear that Mariee was gravely ill,” her attorneys said at the time. “ICE simply discharged mother and daughter.” Mariee died in a hospital six weeks later.
These deaths don’t have to happen, medical professionals make clear. “Young women don’t have to die of sepsis, for God’s sake,” UC San Francisco Human Rights Asylum Clinic Medical Director Coleen Kivlahan told the Los Angeles Times. This was listed as Medina Leon’s official cause of death. “Was this death preventable by early screening and early care? The answer would be yes.” It’s blood on ICE’s hands.
“ICE is releasing people from custody right before they die to escape accountability for their deaths,” the ACLU tweeted. “This demonstration of cruelty and neglect is exactly why we must shut down the ICE detention machine.”
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