The Most American Thing Imaginable

Turns out a great way to die is to get caught up in the American system of ethnic cleansing and then be exposed to the nation’s terrible medical care while rotting away in our carceral system, all systems that discriminate against people of color.

Poor medical care contributed to more than half of the deaths reported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at its detention facilities over a recent 16-month stretch, according to a new research report.

Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, Detention Watch Network and the National Immigrant Justice Center today released a 72-page report analyzing ICE’s paperwork on 15 immigrant deaths at detention sites between December 2015 and April 2017. Five of those — or a third of the total — occurred in Texas facilities, including the South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, south of San Antonio.

The report’s authors used independent doctors with expertise in correctional health to review ICE’s death records, and in almost every case, the physicians found signs of substandard care. The docs also agreed that poor care was a factor in eight of the 15 deaths.

“ICE has proven unable or unwilling to provide adequately for the health and safety of the people it detains,” said Clara Long, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Trump administration’s efforts to drastically expand the already-bloated immigration detention system will only put more people at risk.”

Hard for me to imagine a more American fate.