Chattanooga Times Free Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Jamaican woman being transferred from one South Florida immigration detention center to another by herself is raped by the immigration officer who drove the van.
A Honduran man also in immigration detention suffers a burst appendix, but it takes a week before medical personnel respond, endangering his life.
Those are two examples presented by South Florida immigrant advocates in support of the Obama administration’s initiative to improve detention facilities and custodial procedures used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But that effort has attracted an aggressive critic: Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Last week Smith convened a hearing to review the proposed changes, which he says are unnecessarily expensive and would result in a detention procedure that should be called “Holiday on ICE.”
But immigrant advocates say that 115 people died in ICE detention between 2003 and 2010 and that many of those deaths, including suicides, were preventable. They say the need for improvement in detainee care is urgent.
They point to cases in which detainees did not receive adequate medical care, including women, who make up about 10 percent of ICE detainees.
Cases of rape were reported
One was the case of the Jamaican woman — known only as “M.A.” in a statement released by her attorneys — who was attacked while being transported from Krome Detention Center in Miami—Dade County to the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach on Sept. 21, 2007.
ICE officer Wilfredo Vasquez, who took the woman to his home to assault her, eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.
The Obama administration and immigrant advocates say that shows the need for clearer ICE procedures, including a rule prohibiting agency employees from transporting lone members of the opposite sex.
The new standards also would create zero tolerance for all forms of sexual assault, written procedures for internal investigations, and a requirement that victims be provided emergency medical and mental health services and ongoing care.
Another South Florida case was that of Honduran Miguel Bonilla, who in September 2008 was being held in Glades County Detention Center when his appendix burst. He later said in a statement that he was in acute pain for days and vomited all the food he ate, but was given only Pepto-Bismol, Maalox and soup. He said he received no other treatment for a week until a nurse recognized his symptoms and sent him to a hospital. He spent 11 days recovering, which added to the expense of his custody.
That and other cases — some of which allegedly resulted in death — have led the Obama administration to recommend stricter protocols for detainee medical care.
ICE issued a statement in response to Smith’s criticisms. Agency officials emphasized that immigration offenses are not criminal violations but civil infractions. Some being held by ICE are criminal violators, but not all.
“The new standards are designed to ensure that individuals being detained by ICE are held in appropriate conditions based their criminal history and risk of flight, or lack thereof, as well as their medical and mental health needs,” the statement said.
“The standards do not result in a one-size-fits-all system, but rather one that ranges from minimum to maximum security, according to individual circumstances,” the statement continued. “Within this range, the standards also assure appropriate access to legal services, medical and mental health care, family visitation, and recreation.”
There are 33,000 immigrants and asylum seekers held in detention facilities across the country, according to ICE. Some are held for months or years.
The numbers have risen sharply in the past 15 to 20 years. Before that, the average daily population of immigration detainees was about 7,500. The increases have continued under the Obama administration, which detained more than 396,000 immigration violators in fiscal 2011.
Smith’s criticisms of the new system were not just about comfort and spending. He also voiced concerns over a new complaint system that allows detained immigrants to report mistreatment to various agencies. Smith said that makes ICE agents vulnerable to false accusations.
Chris Crane, leader of a union representing federal officers responsible for detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, is also a critic of some of the new procedures. At the hearing last week, he said ICE had set up no national system for employees to report attacks by detainees on officers.
ICE agents also are concerned, he said, that the new standards do not include criminal background screenings of visitors to detention centers.
Copyright 2012 Chattanooga Publishing Company