Health Care of Detained Immigrants Questioned as Many Die
While local law enforcement officials are taking flak for their handling of newfound broader authority to conduct immigration stings and question immigrants over their immigration status, the Department of Homeland Security, who has been championing these collaborations with local authorities, has come under fire for alleged mistreatment of immigrants who have been detained in their custody.
Several media outlets have reported on a leak of internal memos from the DHS concerning the health care of those in custody that described the program as a "massive crisis in medical care." According to records from the Division of Immigration Health Services obtained by the Washington Post, around 83 immigrants have died while in custody while awaiting processing and deportation during the past 5 years.
The real question is, why aren't we hearing more about this apparently widespread problem? The Washington Post should be commended for its in-depth four-part series on immigrant detention, including an archive of related documents as well as audio and video links enhancing the reportage. However, the political and social debate has largely focused on the legality of undocumented immigrants. Apparently, lost in the argument is the point that whatever course U.S. immigration policy takes, immigrants require the same level of care and attention that any other prisoner in the U.S. requires; without this basic level of treatment, illness and death will naturally follow.
The Post series focused on not only ill-advised actions taken by medical staff but also flawed medical judgments and administrative practices, neglectful guards, poorly trained technicians, sloppy record-keeping, lost files, and staff shortages.
In a response to the allegations, assistant secretary Myers pointed to advances that the DHS has made in updating and revising health standards over the past few years, including doubling spending on health care. The results bear out this improvement, she claims, as the number of detention deaths has dropped in the last several years, from 29 in 2004 to seven in 2007, along with the mortality rate, from 10.8 deaths per 100,000 detainees to 3.5.
The accumulation of negative data has caused some lawmakers to broach the subject in a serious manner. Members of Congress led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) have declared that they will question DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and assistant secretary for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Julie Myers over the allegations, while House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan) has also stated that he plans a hearing with Secretary Chertoff in the near future.
Conyers in particular wants to study the demographic breakdown of the immigrant detainee population. Indeed, it would be difficult for Chertoff and Myers to defend the poor performance on care leading to deaths due to the fact that most immigrants are only detained for three weeks and generally include a younger population than the national average.