ICE has kept detainees' COVID-19 hospitalization a secret from families
Families and attorneys for people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Miami Herald that their loved ones and clients have essentially gone missing for weeks at a time while in custody, notified of their location only after the media outlet reported on their disappearances or pressed officials for information. Detainees, they eventually found out, had been hospitalized after becoming sick with COVID-19, with no notification to relatives or advocates.
Maria Carolina Moros-Rodriguez told Miami Herald she had no idea about her dad’s location since May 30. “My phone just stopped ringing with calls from my dad. He just disappeared without a trace.” She found out he’d been hospitalized with pneumonia and COVID-19 only after the outlet pressed ICE this week. “I told [the employee] that ‘the only reason my father would ever not want us to know about his health is either because he is in a coma or dead, which one is it? Do I have to wait to be told that I have to pick up his ashes?’” she said according to the report.
“ICE’s withholding of detainee location and medical information from lawyers has become very common, attorneys say, despite federal regulations that require that a detainee’s lawyer of record be notified at the time of a transfer,” Miami Herald said. “None of ICE’s guidelines on medical care explicitly address notifications to family or attorneys,” the report continued. But guideline or no guideline, even a former ICE head said the agency should be informing families their loved ones are extremely sick—and especially during a pandemic that has killed 120,000 people here.
“Maybe there is some security reason, perhaps they are worried about someone’s effort to help the individual escape civil detention from a hospital, but you have to balance the humanitarian factors,” former acting ICE director John Sandweg told Miami Herald. “It’s a basic human right to be able to notify family members and let them know that their loved ones are OK, or not OK. This is a transparency issue.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/19/1954414/--He-just-disappeared-ICE-has-kept-detainees-COVID-19-hospitalization-a-secret-from-families
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