Rights Group: ICE Internal Reviews Show Dangerous Lapses In Migrant Medical Care
The non-profit group Human Rights Watch released a report Thursday that alleges poor medical care of migrants in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contributed to the deaths of seven people between 2012 and 2015.
One of those cases is that of Manuel Cota Domingo, a Guatemalan man held in the Eloy Detention Center who died in 2012.
Cota Domingo was diabetic and allegedly rejected his personal insulin while in custody in late 2012. Hours later, he began to cough hard then fell; his cellmate yelled for help. Guards would pass by, but did not stop to check on him for three hours.
Those were some of the findings in an ICE internal review conducted by the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility's Office of Detention Oversight and by Creative Corrections, an outside consulting firm hired by ICE to help oversee its detention operations. The report on Cota Domingo partly provided the basis for Human Rights Watch's own report that seven of 18 deaths might have been averted if staff at the detention center had done its job correctly. ICE's full report is here.
Dr. Marc Stern worked with Human Rights Watch on Thursday’s report.
"His heart rate was almost twice the normal limit. His heart rate was 174," Stern said. "He was breathing almost twice as fast as someone should be breathing. He was breathing 34 times a minute. His blood pressure was high. All of these things constituted an emergency."
He said medical staff at the detention center should have called 911. Instead, staff waited to check him again, then took Cota Domingo to the hospital in a van, rather than an ambulance. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
It’s one of seven cases in a three-year period where immigrants in ICE custody might have been saved if there were adequate care, said Human Rights Watch researcher, Clara Long.
"The flaws in the medical care that we see in these cases are literally fatal," Long said.
ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe said in an email that the agency has made progress reforming its detention system.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) remains committed to providing a safe and humane environment for all those in its custody, including affording access to necessary and appropriate healthcare," she wrote.
"ICE takes the death of any individual that occurs in the agency’s custody very seriously. Under ICE’s protocols, a detainee death triggers an immediate internal inquiry into the circumstances. In fact, the findings cited in these reports are the result of exhaustive case reviews conducted by ICE’s own Office of Detention Oversight, which was established in 2009 as part of the agency’s comprehensive detention reforms.
"Another crucial facet of the agency’s detention reforms has been the implementation of significant changes to the healthcare delivery system to ensure that those in ICE custody receive timely access to medical services and treatment. That includes establishing a cadre of Detainee Medical Coordinators who are assigned to each of the agency’s field offices to closely monitor complex cases. ICE has also since simplified the process for detainees to receive authorized healthcare treatments."
