Too Much Secrecy
Information on deaths of immigration detainees should be public
The deaths of U.S. immigration detainees are lost in a patchwork process in which they can be dead for days or even weeks before their families are notified.
The New York Times reports that detention for immigration violations is administered through a tangle of federal detention centers, county jails and privately run prisons. And no government entity is required to report or investigate detainees’ deaths.
In one horrific example, Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old tailor, died in May 2007, four months after he collapsed in a bathroom and his head hit the floor, the Times reports.
Bah, a native of Guinea who had overstayed a tourist visa, was detained at a New Jersey facility privately run by the Corrections Corp. of America. After his collapse, Bah was restrained on the floor with handcuffs and shackles as he cried and vomited. He was then placed in a solitary confinement cell where he remained - incoherent and foaming at the mouth - for 14 hours.
Detention officials then called 911 and Bah was taken to a hospital, where an examination showed he had a fractured skull and was hemorrhaging in several areas of his brain. He underwent surgery but never regained consciousness.
A friend told Bah’s family of his fall four days after it happened. Detention center officials refused to give Bah’s relatives the records of his treatment, which had been labeled “proprietary information.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials review cases of detainee deaths internally but are not required to investigate them or report them to the public.
Members of Congress have said such a system gives the agency too much discretion and allows mistreatment to go unreported. Legislation that has passed in the House, but is stalled in the Senate, would require states that receive federal law enforcement funding to report detainees’ deaths to their attorney general.
But even that is not enough. That a man can lie shackled on the floor in his own vomit without medical assistance is beyond disgraceful. Detainees are people and deserve to be treated humanely.
© Las Vegas Sun, 2008
Who could the author of this article possibly be appealing to? Certainly not the disempowered US electorate that can’t even stop its own government from abusing its own citizens, imprimus.
I think the author of this article needs to make his appeal directly to the UN; arguing for an international military force to occupy Washington, D.C. in the name restoring democratic rule in the USA.
If something like that happened there might be some hope for all of these human abuse issues.
agog May 6th, 2008 5:54 pm
I second.
Apparently the CD readers don’t find this an issue of concern. I am appalled. What sort of people are we and what have we allowed to happen to our nation?
This is complete bullshit! Not the article… but the fact that this country treats other human beings (Mexican immigrants) like animals! Any person is just a person… whether they be on one side of a border or the other and to say that they shouldn’t be here for some reason or another is completely ridiculous! Free trade killed so many farmers in the east and you impose that same imperialism on a country right below America and all their farmers come to America and suddenly they’re the uncontrollable savages that we need to round up and deport! You want savagery? America is a country of savages who think the 13th amendment abolished slavery even though almost every item they use comes from under paid and over worked victims of our free trade agreements. Chiqita gave money to Columbian terrorists and yet we can still buy Chiqita bananas in the store, yet some how we’re still morally superior to Palestinian suicide bombers. Will anyone please carify how any of this makes any God damn sense? I hope Rush Fatass Limbaugh can put all of this into context with his brilliant thoughts of the xenophobic trash he spews out onto privately owned corporate news radio!
This Story makes An Argument for The World Court, it is Clear that every Country, US, China, Russia, and any other Country you Choose to name, will Act in what it decides to be it’s own best interest. Until A world Body is allowed to determine what is in Its best Interest, these kinds of injustices will continue.
agog said it all:”Who could the author of this article possibly be appealing to? Certainly not the disempowered US electorate that can’t even stop its own government from abusing its own citizens, imprimus.” And yet, like the Citizens of Germany in the 30’s the general public in the U.S. look the other way-someone else’s problem-keep a low profile.
Lover of Peace -
Concerve your energy that’s wasted meerely feeling appalled.
Use any saved energy instead to grab your neighbor and your congressperson by the metaphorical moral neck; shaking them all till their false brains fall out.
Why protest? Didn’t no less than Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scallia claim on international media that non-citizens have no rights in the US and that torture is ok as long as it’s not done as punishment? All the security goons have to claim is that they were torturing this non-citizen FOR FUN and then they’re off the hook.
We’ve been protesting the destruction of the constitution for seven years and it hasn’t got us jack. The only constitutional premise still upheld is the right to bear arms; too bad you can’t do anything to shift the government with that.
pangolin -
Freedom needs to win, not commit suicide.
I’m with you in defense of 2nd Amendment rights.
But really, what the hell good are hand held citizen guns gonna do against a volunteer-zombified domestic army armed with super high tech weapons and commanded by gov thugs who’d just as soon vaporize you and your American Maple Sreet neighborhood as they would kill an entire nation of Arabs-in-their-way?
Freedom living Americans have to come out alive in all this, not just die heroically while the statist bastards who’ve stolen our constitutions left and right fatally trick us into premature insurrection.
Keep Your Power Dry. But use it only as the ultra-last resort.
It’s arguable that we’re there already … I know.
Respecfully, agog.