Co-published by Newsweek
In a rush to create detention space, ICE has used opaque noncompetitive contracts called Intergovernmental Service Agreements to quickly bring beds online. A result has been the government’s inability to impose accountability standards on its sprawling immigrant-prison system.
The medical care Olubunmi Joshua received for high blood pressure, anemia, anxiety, dental pain and other conditions was delayed, denied or mishandled by her detention center’s staff, ICE reported.
After complaining of chest pains and dizziness, Igor Zyazin was given an EKG, but not a blood test to determine if he had suffered a heart attack. The next day he was dead.
JeanCarlo Jimenez is one of 179 immigrants to die in U.S. custody since 2003. The missteps and errors of ICE and its contractors have led to concerns about the safety of immigrant detainees.
Capital & Main’s new project, Deadly Detention, is intended to give names and faces to undocumented immigrants who have died in federal detention, and to explain how they met such sad fates in the country most had come to in search of better lives.