How 287(g) Could Lead to Disaster and Death
This story from yesterday’s NY Times is a sickening harbinger of a horror show that may soon come to Nashville.
It’s the tale of Hiu Lui Ng, an immigrant who came to the U.S. legally fifteen years ago, got married, and built a family and a business while trying to get citizenship. Last summer, a broken immigration system ended up throwing Ng — pronounced Eng — into deportation proceedings and eventually into a series of jails. As Ng was shuttled from jail to jail, he began to feel pain in his back. When he complained to his captors, they thought he was faking it and did nothing, even though he couldn't stand to go to the bathroom or walk to the visitation room to meet his family.
His requests to see an outside doctor were denied until, finally, authorities relented. But the pain had come from undiagnosed cancer, which had eaten his body alive and shattered his spine. He died two days after his 34th birthday.
There are details in the Times story that, believe it or not, make this story worse than the brief summary above. Not the least is that while Ng was on his deathbed, immigration authorities pressured him to withdraw his appeals and accept voluntary deportation.
So what does this mean for Nashville?
This could have easily happened here.
According to The Times, at least 66 people have died while in custody of the immigration bureaucracy. With Daron Hall’s 287(g) program in full swing, the number of offenders being detained in Nashville has skyrocketed. While death is a very real part of any prison, the nature of immigration detention, with its colliding cultures, makes it all the more perilous. Prisoners are moved from facility to facility — often across state lines — without family or attorneys being notified. In one case, a week passed before the family of a man from Guinea was notified that he was in the hospital with a fractured skull and brain hemorrhaging.
In Tennessee, most immigrants have to go to Memphis for a hearing before a judge, or get shipped to Louisiana, where they are put in a federal pen. Immigration attorneys will tell you that a lot can get lost in transition.
Our jailers are going to make mistakes. They are humans operating within a large bureaucracy that wields the total power of incarceration. Unfortunately, these mistakes, as in Ng’s case, can be for keeps. Are we willing to roll the dice with the lives of non-violent offenders?
Perhaps Juana Villegas is as bad as it will get for us. I sure hope it doesn’t get any worse than arresting a pregnant woman, shackling her to a hospital bed and separating her from her newborn baby. It would be tragic for someone to die before we realize the path of folly our elected officials now walk.
Comments
Most of us who are educated enough to read and appreciate Pith In The Wind would probably never consider migrating illegally to another country.
I'd be surprised if a single reader here has ever left this country without identification or entered another country illegally, unless they were drunk, stoned, intended to engage in criminal activity or are pretending to be a fan of Pith In The Wind. That's because we're educated enough about the fate that awaits people that make poor choices.
I think the more educated others are at the fate that awaits them when they choose to enter our country illegally, the more likely they are to chose a legal, safe and secure path toward the future. That's not to say 287(g) should be used to treat people inhumanely, but I wouldn't expect any country, including the U.S., to treat criminals or illegal immigrants to a cushy stay at the Ritz, either.
Posted 08/14/2008 at 02:45:40 PMIt is curious that you write as if there is always a "legal, safe and secure path." The status quo that we have had in this country for a long time is that there is no such path for many.
A vivid example is Anne Frank's father, who did what you suggest and chose a legal path by applying for a visa to the U.S. on two separate occasions, and on both occasions was denied. Had he applied mere decades earlier when Ellis Island was willing to consider anyone who got off the boat, and in the process rejected only 2% of the arrivals (and not testing for English, by the way), the Franks would have lived.
As their story illustrates, for many would-be immigrants, the U.S. does not offer any legal, safe, and secure option.
I would have rather Anne Frank and her family arrived in the U.S. and found a country willing to welcome them. Instead, out of fear, we withheld their legal, safe, and secure option. Just as we continue to do today.
Posted 08/15/2008 at 01:27:14 AMWonder how many citizens of Nashville are alive at this moment thanks to 287(g). Of those who have been deported are criminals and wild and careless drivers. In the above story it stated he came to America legally and then 15 yrs. later was deported. Something doesn't add up.
Posted 08/28/2008 at 05:08:50 PM