Immigration Law

Officials Hid Truth of Immigrant Deaths in Jail

By Robert Kraft

A highly disturbing article was published today in the New York Times. It reports on several deaths of immigrants held in jails across the country, and the apparent attempts by government officials to hide the details of those deaths. I encourage everyone to read the entire article. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Silence has long shrouded the men and women who die in the nation's immigration jails. For years, they went uncounted and unnamed in the public record. Even in 2008, when The New York Times obtained and published a federal government list of such deaths, few facts were available about who these people were and how they died.

But behind the scenes, it is now clear, the deaths had already generated thousands of pages of government documents, including scathing investigative reports that were kept under wraps, and a trail of confidential memos and BlackBerry messages that show officials working to stymie outside inquiry.

The documents, obtained over recent months by The Times and the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, concern most of the 107 deaths in detention counted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since October 2003, after the agency was created within the Department of Homeland Security.

 

Full post as published by Immigration Law Answers Blog on January 10, 2010 (boomark / email).