In August, 2008, Jason Ng, a 34-year-old computer engineer from New York, died from complications of cancer and a fractured spine after being denied medical care at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, and a Vermont jail where ICE contracts for detainee bed space. Ng was denied proper medical care and legal access at Wyatt, where he spent the final month of his life as his undetected, undiagnosed cancer withered his body, and fractured spine left him unable to walk.Ng, a computer engineer from China, paid the ultimate price for overstaying a visa, and getting lost in a sprawling system that some have likened to a gulag. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not comment because of a continuing investigation. But court affidavits tell a story of shocking neglect:
Although he complained of excruciating back pain for months, and grew ever frailer in custody, officials at the Rhode Island detention center where he was being held denied Mr. Ng an independent medical evaluation and even a wheelchair. At one point, according to the affidavits, he was shackled and taken in an ambulance for a two-hour drive to Hartford, where an immigration officer pressured him to stop appealing his case and accept deportation. When lawyers finally persuaded a judge to insist on suitable medical treatment for Mr. Ng, the long-deferred diagnosis was dire. Prison officials had said IT WAS ALL AN ACT. It was terminal cancer — and a broken spine. Mr. Ng was taken to the hospital, and died five days later.
“It’s clearly a violation of human rights; we believe that it’s a criminal act to deny someone medical care and cause their death like that,” said Shannah Kurland of the Olneyville Neighborhood Association.
Kurland and other speakers cited documented accounts by the media and human-rights organizations of detainees’ deaths in ICE custody across the country. That includes a Brazilian illegal immigrant who died in 2007 after convulsing at the ICE office in downtown Providence.
Ng's widow and naturalized citizen Lin Li Qu filed a lawsuit today, 2-9-09, suing the owner of the Detention Facility and Federal immigration authorities. The lawsuit alleges Jason Ng was denied medical care at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility. It says he was taunted and abused by staff who accused him of faking illness.
We can only hope Janet Napolitano and Dora Schriro, her special advisor on Detention and ICE Removal, complete investigations of the Detention Centers, particularly those privately owned with histories of prisoner abuses and take actions to not only correct the problems but in many cases, close them!
References:
R.I. lawmakers seek federal probe into death
References:
R.I. lawmakers seek federal probe into death
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