Thanks to the New York Times and the ACLU, information finally obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, we are finally getting the “rest of the story” — the ugly story of immigration detainees and immigration jails.
Whatever position an American may have on the immigration reform our nation so desperately needs, none among us can be proud of the treatment and sometimes the deaths of immigrants while being held in immigration jails. As the New York Times and the ACLU fought for records to be made public a cover-up was already in the making.
… behind the scenes, it is now clear, the deaths had already generated thousands of pages of government documents, including scathing investigative reports that were kept under wraps, and a trail of confidential memos and BlackBerry messages that show officials working to stymie outside inquiry.
The documents, obtained over recent months by The Times and the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, concern most of the 107 deaths in detention counted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since October 2003, after the agency was created within the Department of Homeland Security.
Obviously, any department directly related to immigration, including green cards, detention, jailing, and deportation must be examined closely. In August of 2008, BernieHund wrote of the death of Mr. Ng while in detention. Earlier in the same year, Agent Isaac Baichu was willing to issue a green card in exchange for oral sex when only two days later an immigrant who had honorably served our country for four years as a translator in Iraq was denied a green card.
President Obama has stated that his administration will try to revamp the detention procedures. At the present detainees are held in jails that range from state to federal to local jails. Oversight is haphazard at best and criminal at its worst.
It is now no secret that the entire system is filled with mismanagement and criminal activity, including mistreatment and lying to cover it up. In one case medical records indicated that a detainee had been administered a Motrin to head pain (that resulted from a occurrence while detained) only to discover that the man was already dead at the time he was supposedly given medication.
In another case that year, investigators from the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that unbearable, untreated pain had been a significant factor in the suicide of a 22-year-old detainee at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey, and that the medical unit was so poorly run that other detainees were at risk.
The New York Times report offers many — emphasis on many — similar cases of neglect and cover-up.
Whatever our opinions on those who seek to come to our country, mistreatment and death are not reasonable responses. It is time for America and Americans to tackle the immigration issue head on, rather than stuffing these detained immigrants in cells indefinitely until they are dead or deported.
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