New York’s Largest ICE Prison Dogged by Allegations of Shoddy Medical Care

U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and staff have administered what experts declared was shoddy therapeutic cure to at least a dozen detainees at its Batavia New York facility in the past two years according to the findings of a new assessment Serious injuries went untreated medications were denied or scaled back and needed therapeutic appointments were delayed at the ICE detention center the state s largest located near Buffalo In one development a Nigerian migrant arrived in February at the Batavia ICE detention facility suffering frostbite A expert who provided crisis care ordered that he see a specialist within a week before releasing him into ICE s custody Agents in Batavia never took him to the appointment By the time he saw a specialist it was too late to save his fingers parts of six were later amputated In another scenario a Gambian man with numerous heart issues was detained by ICE in February after he exhibited up for a routine check-in appointment The man went two weeks without his medications He suffered a stroke-like syndrome as a aftermath according to a medical professional It certainly appears to be a violation of ICE s own detention standards Attorneys and other detainee advocates stated in interviews that the cases documented by this reporting are indicative of a wider obstacle And a assessment by NPR uncovered similar problems across ICE s system of detention centers Sophie Dalsimer an attorney with New York Lawyers for the General Interest who has studied healthcare cure in ICE facilities in New York stated the agency s rehabilitation of detainees amounts to anatomical neglect in a legal sense The lack of physiological care and with ICE being deliberately indifferent to people s medicinal requirements could in several of these instances rise to the level of a constitutional violation she disclosed It certainly appears to be a violation of ICE s own detention standards Those standards include providing prescribed medications timely responses to diagnostic complaints and hospitalization as needed The Batavia facility officially called the Buffalo Batavia Facility Processing Center lacks a professional and dentist working on-site this study determined That s for a -bed detention center that s been overcapacity for months due to the Trump administration s crackdown on asylum seekers A Department of Homeland Assurance inspector general statement published in June noted that staffing shortages caused delays in dental and off-site specialty care Between September and February the overview noted ICE had a -person backlog of detainees who required outside medicinal rehabilitation and were waiting for appointments That issue was noted previously in a Civil Rights and Civil Liberties inspection into physiological care at Batavia That audit gave the facility a passing grade but also unveiled several examples of detainees waiting for various specialty fitness care services for more than a month In one situation a detainee waited days for an endocrinology appointment In another development the auditor detected that a detainee requested an outside medical professional appointment for blood in his stool but that ICE deleted the request from its internal system Related Chinese ICE Detainee Dies by Suicide at Pennsylvania Detention Center It s just freak luck that no one has died in Batavia in the last two years declared Aaron Krupp the regional coordinator at Justice for Migrant Families But the way that they have treated people people really easily could have died This story is based on a review of nearly pages of court filings from seven lawsuits diagnostic records and other documents as well as interviews with a dozen people including detainees attorneys and other experts Neither ICE nor DHS its parent agency responded to detailed questions and requests for about each incident in this story Injuries Go Untreated Chidi Nwagbo moved from Nigeria to the U S in living for years as a model resident with no criminal history according to his attorney When Donald Trump took office in January he explained in a July interview things just went helter-skelter like raids everywhere and I didn t know what to do He made a plan to move to Canada to live with his brother and paid a smuggler to shepherd him and three other foreigners into Quebec The final leg of the journey required them to cross the edge on foot but Nwagbo reported he was unprepared for freezing temperatures and waist-deep snow He and a woman in his party eventually called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to rescue them After a hospital stint he was distributed into federal immigration custody on February with orders from a medical professional that he see a specialist at Kessler Burn and Trauma Center in Rochester New York to treat his frostbitten fingers within a week Nwagbo s clinical records which he shared for this review show the physician made a referral to a specific specialist ICE never took him to the appointment according to Nwagbo s therapeutic records By the time he saw a different specialist at a different practice days later his fingers were too far gone Amputations would be necessary the medical practitioner advised him He s now missing portions of six fingers I shouldn t have lost my fingers he revealed A screen capture of Chidi Nwagbo's health records Screenshot J Dale Shoemaker Investigative Post The scenario of Tim another Nigerian is similar In April this year Tim who demanded to remain anonymous for fear of retribution against his family was days away from finishing a federal prison sentence for a fraud conviction when he fell down a set of stairs He suffered a major concussion and was taken to a Massachusetts hospital Upon discharge he was prescribed nine drugs ordered to attend inpatient physical therapy and transferred to the Batavia detention center Once at the detention center he went at least a month without medication and received only one physical therapy session before being deported this summer By that point Tim required a walker I suffer a lot of mental physical condition issues I cannot sleep I am on zero medications I m very traumatized at the moment he commented during an interview in May several weeks after his injury I suffer a lot of mental strength issues I cannot sleep I am on zero medications Reached in recent days by email Tim stated his condition has only deteriorated since his return to Nigeria He wrote I am dire need of a comprehensive mental medical neurological medication in order to get my life back to where it used to be before my detention in the United States Medications Denied ICE in specific cases denied detainees access to needed medications In other cases the agency allowed lapses in their medication schedules That was the event with Sering Ceesay the Gambian man with heart conditions He was detained by ICE in New York City on February after what he expected to be a routine immigration appointment Instead ICE placed him in shackles and chains and transported him to Batavia He went two weeks without his medications On March he attended a legal clinic hosted by attorneys from the legal advocates at Robert F Kennedy Human Rights who briskly realized Ceesay needed curative attention according to court filings from a later lawsuit by Ceesay alleging he was being held in violation of his rights I was feeling very weak and my entire body just hurt Ceesay stated in a filing I felt like when I had my heart attacks U S District Judge Lawrence Vilardo later ordered Ceesay published but not before he was diagnosed with a stroke-like syndrome because he had missed so plenty of days of his medicine Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants Without strict adherence to these medications Ceesay is likely to suffer from recurrent heart attacks worsening peripheral artery condition and strokes and increasing his peril of further disability and avoidable premature death Dr Joseph Shin a physician and professor with Weill Cornell Medicine wrote in a letter submitted as part of Ceesay s lawsuit In Owen Simms s incident ICE provided him with medication but lowered his dosages he disclosed leaving him at pitfall of a seizure An extensive immigration and criminal history landed Simms in the Batavia detention center last March where he remained until he was transferred to an out-of-state facility earlier this month During a previous deportation to his home country Jamaica Simms was struck in the head with a machete he and his wife testified in immigration court filings which left him suffering from seizures An immigration judge later ruled that he should not be deported due to the likelihood he d be attacked again if he returned to Jamaica In an interview Simms explained his detention by ICE caused him to miss several days of his anti-seizure medication He declared the agency then lowered his daily dosage from mg to mg He now worries he ll suffer another seizure which in the past has put him in a coma My seizures come on to me when I m sleeping and if you re not next to me you can t even know that I am having a seizure he revealed It s scary like it s really scary Five other detainees have claimed that ICE denied or delayed them receiving prescribed medication ICE s standards call for all detainees to be provided prescribed medications including a week s supply before a deportation In March an ICE transfer from Florida to Batavia caused Raheem Fulton a Jamaican immigrant suffering from end-stage renal disorder to miss a regularly scheduled dialysis appointment He went five days without the cure and had to be rushed to Buffalo s Erie County Medicinal Center A spokesperson for RFK Human Rights stated ICE caused additional lapses in his dialysis healing in the past and delayed other healthcare appointments too Attorneys for the group are right now suing ICE and have alleged the agency has delayed other treatments Fulton requirements including a cardiology appointment Fulton s lawyers are appealing to the nd U S Circuit Court of Appeals after a Buffalo judge dismissed it in January agreeing with the administration s argument that the court lacked jurisdiction In October ICE attempted unsuccessfully to deport Naim Qasemi to his native Afghanistan Against its protocols ICE failed to provide Qasemi with medications for his diagnosed bipolar disorder his attorneys allege in a lawsuit to stop his deportation Qasemi they wrote was unmedicated and was not receiving any kind of therapeutic restoration in advance of his removal In court filings Justice Department authorities did not address Qasemi s claim A judge dismissed the episode last month after Afghanistan cleared Qasemi s return paving the way for his deportation In a July letter to ICE representatives in Batavia advocates with Justice for Migrant Families wrote that a Honduran man was not receiving a prescribed health cream to treat a skin condition The man also suffers from chronic pain and ibuprofen was no longer working Jennifer Connor the organization s executive director and Krupp wrote They demanded ICE take the man to a specialist and administer a different pain medication Krupp announced that hasn t happened Arzou Hami an Iranian woman suffering from serious mental wellbeing issues was detained in June as part of a sweep of Iranian displaced persons shortly after the U S bombed Iran Matthew Borowski her attorney alleged in court filings that her detention has prevented her from receiving medications She was detained by Buffalo ICE agents at the Niagara County Jail before being transferred to Texas where she is being denied adequate mental healthcare care Borowski wrote in a court filing In an interview he commented his client has now gotten chosen medication but it s not the same thing that she was on before Functionaries have not responded to those maintains in court yet the situation was transferred to Texas last month In a fifth scenario a detainee known only as K U in court filings alleged he has not received proper medicinal care for numerous life-threatening wellbeing conditions His lawsuit states an independent physician reviewed the man s incident and expressed extreme concern that he is not receiving the standard of appropriate health care Executives have yet to address his physiological proposes in court and a judge ordered him disclosed in August In yet another affair a Jordanian man named Mohammed Saleh had restoration for a massive brain tumor and a chronic eye condition delayed by ICE between the fall of and when he was deported He arrived in Batavia in September following a federal prison sentence for his involvement in a failed bombing plot and began complaining of tingling sensations in his fingers and toes several weeks later An MRI and a CT scan revealed the tumor Krupp of Justice for Migrant Families noted Saleh eventually attended follow-up appointments for his tumor but was only given ibuprofen and Tylenol as restoration Saleh also had a prescribed injection for his eye condition delayed by three months Harmed While in Custody Specific detainees were not properly treated for an injury or illness they suffered while detained this probe located Lansine Sidibe a Malian man alleged he was beaten by seven guards at the Batavia facility in February after he refused to sign chosen paperwork According to a human rights complaint his attorneys filed with the Department of Homeland Measure s office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in December he alleged the guards broke his fingers a claim an ICE professional denied according to the complaint Nonetheless it took a month before the agency agreed to X-ray his fingers The abuses are consistent across all the facilities Renny Arcaya-Ventura a Venezuelan man announced in an interview that he suffered a severe allergic reaction and body pains after he was booked into the ICE facility and didn t receive adequate diagnostic care I am in intense pain every day he disclosed Every day I have a fever pains in my body and I can t even walk I have even lost a lot of weight His attorney Guanlin Yang shared photos of Arcaya-Ventura that appear to show swelling in his hands and rashes on his arms Arcaya-Ventura was deported in August Dalsimer of New York Lawyers for the Community Interest has studied health care at the Orange County Jail the second largest ICE detention facility in New York Through her research and legal work she s concluded that therapeutic care offered by ICE is almost consistently subpar The abuses are consistent she mentioned across all the facilities The post New York s Largest ICE Prison Dogged by Assertions of Shoddy Clinical Care appeared first on The Intercept