How ICE killed an immigrant...by letting him die of "undiagnosed and untreated" cancer

[babylonsister]

http://www.americablog.com/2008/08/how-ice-killed-immigrant-in-federal.html

How ICE killed an immigrant in federal custody by letting him die of "undiagnosed and untreated" cancer
Joe Sudbay (DC) · 8/12/2008 11:27:00 PM ET



This is not what a civilized nation does to people in its custody. This is not what a civilized nation does to the father of two of its young citizens. This is not what a civilized nation does to the husband of one of its citizens. This is not what a civilized nation does to other humans. But, this is what happened in George Bush's America. This is what happened in George Bush's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A 34-year old immigrant, hoping to get a green card, instead ended up in prison. He had cancer and no one cared. He's dead now:

He was 17 when he came to New York from Hong Kong in 1992 with his parents and younger sister, eyeing the skyline like any newcomer. Fifteen years later, Hiu Lui Ng was a New Yorker: a computer engineer with a job in the Empire State Building, a house in Queens, a wife who is a United States citizen and two American-born sons.

But when Mr. Ng, who had overstayed a visa years earlier, went to immigration headquarters in Manhattan last summer for his final interview for a green card, he was swept into immigration detention and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.

In April, Mr. Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And last Wednesday, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.

On Tuesday, with an autopsy by the Rhode Island medical examiner under way, his lawyers demanded a criminal investigation in a letter to federal and state prosecutors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the detention system.

This should make all the immigrant bashers really proud. CNN's Lou Dobbs should be giddy because this guy really suffered. He should do a show on this case and explain to us how America is a better place because there is one less immigrant to worry about.

This is a sick story and says so much about the country we've become. I don't suppose George Bush brought this story up when he was discussing human rights with Chinese leaders. Kinda takes away any moral superiority.

Heckuva job Julie Myers. Yeah, this Julie Myers. She runs the ICE for George Bush.

Related:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/nyregion/13detain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[BrklynLiberal]

1. What a tragedy....an avoidable and disturbing and horrendous tragedy.

[babylonsister]

2. Yes it is; my government makes me ashamed yet again. nt

[nc4bo]

3. Read the 2pager at the link and got sick.

What kind of twisted country have we turned into?

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

:(

[babylonsister]

5. .

[Hissyspit]

6. k&r n/t

[suffragette]

7. Cold as I.C.E.

And this is endemic in the Bush crony run system.

From the NYT article about this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/nyregion/13detain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=nyregion

Mr. Ng’s death follows a succession of cases that have drawn Congressional scrutiny to complaints of inadequate medical care, human rights violations and a lack of oversight in immigration detention, a rapidly growing network of publicly and privately run jails where the government held more than 300,000 people in the last year while deciding whether to deport them.

....

In March, the federal government admitted medical negligence in the death of Francisco Castaneda, 36, a Salvadoran whose cancer went undiagnosed in a California detention center as he was repeatedly denied a biopsy on a painful penile lesion. In May, The New York Times chronicled the death of Boubacar Bah, 52, a Guinean tailor who suffered a skull fracture and brain hemorrhages in the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey; records show he was left in an isolation cell without treatment for more than 13 hours.

When Mr. Ng died last week, he had spent half his life in the United States, his sister, Wendy Zhao, said in a tearful interview.


And let us never forget Larissa's relative, who was denied access to necessary medication (if I recall, it was heart meds) by this same inhumane system run by cruel and unfeeling Bush cronies.

Damn them, just damn them.