I've reported on two deaths in the last day of immigrants in detention. Now Dan Kowalski over at Bender's Immigration Bulletin is carrying a story from the Los Angeles Daily Journal on yet another death of an ill immigrant in detention.
The Daily Journal's Sandra Hernandez tells of Victoria Arellano, an AIDS patient who was put in ICE custody in San Diego and denied the handful of prescription drugs needed to fight the disease. According to Hernandez's report, Arellano was denied both medicine and access to a doctor for more than two months before succumbing to the disease. Arellano also was shackled to a bed during the jailing.
The description of Arellano's final days is harrowing:
Arellano's final days were spent in a dormitory-style cell built to hold 50 men but often houses as many as 80.
Arellano's care fell to fellow detainees, who soaked their bath towels in water to cool her fever and used a cardboard box as a makeshift trash can to gather her vomit.
"We all asked the guards for help, to take Victoria to the infirmary but no one did anything," said Oscar Santander, a fellow detainee.
"The last week was the worst," Santander said. "She couldn't stand so we took turns taking her to the bathroom. She was vomiting and had terrible diarrhea."
Arellano was taken to the infirmary and on July 13 given drugs to treat nausea and amoxicillin, an antibiotic, according to a prescription signed by Jeff Brinkley, a senior nurse practitioner assigned to the San Pedro detention center.
Medical experts said amoxicillin is not used to treat AIDS-related infections.
***
Arellano couldn't keep the drugs down and began vomiting blood, Santander said.By nightfall, Arellano looked so pale and weak that 80 detainees staged a protest, ignoring an order to get in line for the nightly head count.
Shortly after that, Arellano was dead. ICE officials are denying they are failing to provide care. But I have reported on three deaths in two days in Texas, Rhode Island and California. And lawyers and advocacy groups around the country are complaining about systematic problems. These types of reports should be extremely rare. When they are happening every day, that's called a scandal.
victoria was a beautifull person. with a big heart. those people didnt even stop to think about what they were doing. and thats right if you stop to compare the jail system with detention centers. which is really worst. if you want to see how beautifull victoria was go to laindependent.com tipe in her name
Posted by: L. arellano | August 15, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Doesn't the constitution prohibit cruel and unusual punishment? It would seem to me that withholding life sustaining medications should fall into that category. For some, as we have seen, this is tantamount to a death sentence.
Posted by: In Immigration Limbo | August 11, 2007 at 08:39 AM
So is this their strategy now? Kill the undocumented one by one since they can't deport them?
Posted by: TX | August 11, 2007 at 07:56 AM
They treat murderer and rapist better than Illegal Immigrants , nativist/"patriot"/minuteman/ignoramus will just say "one down 11,999,999 to go". I saw a documentary about prisons they treat murderers and rapist better there.
Posted by: | August 11, 2007 at 07:35 AM
Disgusting...
Posted by: Me | August 11, 2007 at 05:56 AM
Don't they have a heart? If those prisoners who are guilty of murder and otehr heinous crime were being given good medical treatment, why can't they afford to give the same good treatment to people who's only crime is because their country is poor and cannot provide them good life, and entered illegally but commited no heinous crime?
I hope someday Mexico becomes greater in power and wealth than the US and let's see who crossing the border now.
Posted by: Jun | August 10, 2007 at 08:58 PM