Latest news with #Performance-BasedNationalDetentionStandards
Newsweek
02-05-2025
- Health
- Newsweek
ICE Detainee Dies After HIV Undiagnosed for Months During Custody
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A man who died in ICE custody earlier this year from complications related to untreated HIV could have been saved with the help of routine blood tests, medical experts have told Newsweek, raising concerns about health screening in detention facilities. The 45-year-old Ethiopian man died on January 29, 2025, from "Complications of multiple infections in the setting of human immunodeficiency virus," according to a medical examiner's report filed two days later. His condition went unaddressed during his nearly 4-month detention at Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, a death report from immigration officials said. Modern HIV treatments allow near-average life spans. Three leading infectious disease epidemiologists told Newsweek opportunities to save the man's life were missed. Perry Halkitis, professor of public health at Rutgers University, said "routine blood work" tests would have "immediately" shown that he had HIV. Denis Nash, professor of epidemiology at the CUNY School of Public Health, said the death appeared "entirely preventable" if diagnosed and treated at the time of his initial medical exam, and "still possible" after he started to develop symptoms of advanced HIV. Dr. Monica Gandhi, director of the UCSF Gladstone Center for AIDS Research, also said that antiretroviral therapy during custody "could have prevented" the man's death. When contacted by Newsweek about the concerns, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said its 1,600-strong ICE Health Service Corps employees "uphold the highest standards" and follow the latest Performance-Based National Detention Standards to provide "comprehensive medical care," including a full health assessment for detainees within 14 days. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty Detainees do not need to be routinely screened for HIV, those standards show, but "may request HIV testing at any time during detention" and an HIV diagnosis "may be made only by a licensed health care provider, based on a medical history, current clinical evaluation of signs and symptoms and laboratory studies." Nurses twice recorded the man denied having any prior medical history, the death report said. "At no time during detention is a detained individual denied emergent care," ICE added. The detention center's operator, CoreCivic, told Newsweek its staff would not have made medical decisions and are trained to refer all detainee health concerns to medical staff, and that safety, health, and well-being "is our top priority." The documents detailing the man's death were first obtained by the nonprofit watchdog Project On Government Oversight. The man has not been named due to uncertainty about whether his family was aware of his HIV condition. Why It Matters The death raises serious questions over medical care for those in ICE custody. It also raises concerns about the lack of routine HIV screening in ICE facilities, which experts say could have prevented this tragedy. Between fiscal years 2018 and 2025, there were 65 reported deaths in ICE detention facilities. Immigration arrests and detention have risen sharply under President Donald Trump's second term, leaving stretched detention centers at maximum capacity. What to Know The man was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol near Lukeville, Arizona, on August 19 last year after entering the country illegally. He was placed into expedited removal proceedings and transferred to ICE custody at Eloy Detention Center. No HIV treatment was provided during his time in custody, even though his condition would have required specialized medical attention. After an initial medical screening, which included a chest X-ray, on August 21 and 22, the detainee was cleared to be housed in the general population of the facility, ICE's death report said. The man was evaluated for back pain four times between November 3 and December 16, the death report shows. On December 20, the man informed a detention staff member he had fainted in the recreation yard the day before. A medical doctor assessed him and noted the man showed normal vital signs but also signs of dehydration, an elevated pulse reading of 130 bpm, was feeling weak and fatigued and had lost about 20 percent of his body weight. He was referred to Banner Casa Grande Hospital. Between Christmas Eve and New Year's Ever, doctors at the hospital diagnosed acute respiratory distress, pneumonia, possible lymphoma, and a pericardial effusion, and provided treatment. He was taken by air ambulance to an intensive care unit at Banner University Medical Center Phoenix's (BUMCP) on December 31. Between New Year's Day and January 2, BUMCP medical staff identified his immunocompromised status—HIV can leave the body unable to produce an adequate immune response — and diagnosed him with acute respiratory distress, pneumonia, possible lymphoma with metastases in the lungs, life-threatening sepsis, supraventricular tachycardia, and ischemic stroke. As a result, BUMCP medical staff ordered oncology and palliative care consultations. On January 3, BUMCP medical staff performed a biopsy of his neck lymph node, diagnosed him with tuberculosis, and placed him on a ventilator for airway protection As his condition continued to deteriorate, his next of kin made the decision to withdraw life support. The man was pronounced dead at approximately 1:21 p.m. on January 29. Medical experts told Newsweek that better treatment could have prevented the man's death. "This patient died of AIDS and resultant opportunistic infections that result from untreated HIV infection, including central nervous system toxoplasmosis, pneumocystis pneumonia, tuberculosis, and CMV (all infections that occur as a result of advanced immunodeficiency with HIV)," said Dr. Gandhi after reviewing the medical examiner's report. "He was not receiving antiretroviral therapy (which treats HIV) when in ICE detention which could have prevented all of these conditions." Nash, professor of epidemiology at the CUNY School of Public Health, said the death appeared "entirely preventable" if recognized and diagnosed in time. "It is possible that [the detainee] could have survived, had his HIV been diagnosed and treated at the time of his initial medical exam, and also still possible even after he started to develop symptoms of advanced HIV and OIS." He added: "The presence of multiple opportunistic infections—like pneumocystis pneumonia, CMV, toxoplasmosis, and advanced TB—strongly suggests he had untreated HIV for a long time. These are not subtle signs; they are classic indicators of HIV infection that has progressed to full-blown AIDS due to a severely weakened immune system. "And development of new symptoms after detention should receive immediate attention, as both advanced HIV and TB disease can progress rapidly towards a fatal outcome without treatment." It is still common for people to be diagnosed too late to benefit from treatment, Nash said, and clinical management is harder when people have advanced HIV and other complications. "Even when this happens, people can often respond well to treatment of HIV and the OIS. But time is of the essence. And of course clinical management is harder when people have advanced HIV with Oi-related complications like this," he said. This electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health shows a human T cell, in blue, under attack by HIV, in yellow, the virus that causes AIDS. This electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health shows a human T cell, in blue, under attack by HIV, in yellow, the virus that causes AIDS. Seth Pincus, Elizabeth Fischer, Austin Athman/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/NIH via AP Halkitis, an expert in infectious disease epidemiology and professor of public health at Rutgers University, said in a statement: "If they had run routine blood work they would have seen immediately from his CD4 [a type of white blood cell that plays a crucial role in the immune system] count that he had HIV. Immediately!" Public health experts have repeatedly raised alarms about inadequate infectious disease screening in immigration detention centers. A study published in Health and Human Rights Journal in 2009 concluded "the system of immigration detention in the US fails to adequately screen detainees for HIV and delivers a substandard level of medical care to those with HIV." The study urged ICE to adopt routine HIV testing to all detainees, provide appropriate care to those who require treatment, report HIV statistics to an external agency, and guarantee defined medical care as a matter of law. A 2024 study in the American Journal of Public Health called on ICE to improve access to HIV treatment and begin publishing monthly health care metrics—including data on whether detainees are receiving HIV medications. Immigration arrests and detention have risen sharply since Trump began his second White House term on January 20. U.S. ICE agents made 32,809 migrant arrests between then and March 10, 2025, officials said at a news conference in March, at a rate more than double than under former President Joe Biden. Detention centers are struggling to cope. U.S. immigration detention is filled to capacity at 47,600 detainees, a senior ICE official told reporters that month, and the Trump administration is seeking more bed space. The Elroy facility had the sixth highest daily population on January 6, according to data analyzed by Syracuse University nonprofit TRAC.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Yahoo
UW report finds ‘patterns of neglect' in Tacoma police responses to immigration lockup
A decade of 911 call records and police investigations involving the privately-run federal immigration detention center in Tacoma show a pattern of neglect in police's response to abuse and assault reports, according to a new University of Washington report. Researchers with UW's Center for Human Rights found that the Tacoma Police Department was less likely to contact alleged victims of crimes at the facility when that person was someone detained there compared to when victims were facility staff. The report, published Thursday, found cases where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the federal contractor that runs the Northwest ICE Processing Center, the GEO Group, discouraged Tacoma police from investigating reported crimes. Often, according to the report, this led police to not take further action. It also highlighted cases where ICE or GEO disparaged the credibility of victims or where the entities said they were investigating the reports in house, including in cases where facility staff were the alleged perpetrators. In one 2018 case that led to a lawsuit, researchers wrote that a man who reported to police that he was beaten by facility guards during a hunger strike appeared to have been placed in solitary confinement for 20 days as retaliation for speaking to law enforcement. 'The time is now for Tacoma authorities to ensure they take vigorous action to ensure equal protection of the laws to all residents of the city, including those detained by ICE at the [Northwest Detention Center],' UW professor Angelina Snodgrass Godoy said in a news release. Godoy said action was particularly important because ICE has stated its intention to extend operations at the Tacoma facility into 2040. ICE's 10-year contract with GEO to run the facility expires in September. The Tacoma Police Department did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment. ICE and the GEO Group also did not respond to requests for comment. . The Northwest ICE Processing Center holds people who are suspected of being in the country illegally or awaiting deportation. It has a capacity for 1,575 detainees, placing it among the largest ICE detention facilities in the nation. It's the only such facility in the Pacific Northwest. Here's what Tacoma's U.S. Rep. Emily Randall saw in tour of ICE detention center According to UW researchers, ICE and GEO policies mandate that all potential crimes be reported to local law enforcement so police can independently investigate them. At the same time, ICE and GEO have their own set of procedures to investigate violence within the facility. This system is described in ICE's Performance-Based National Detention Standards. GEO Group officials have previously said those standards strictly govern how it operates the facility with on-site federal contract monitors. UW researchers say that the two-track system for responding to reports of violence isn't how it works in practice. The report found GEO and ICE personnel often tell Tacoma police they don't need to investigate because they are handling the report. In other cases, the police told people calling to report a crime that they didn't have jurisdiction over crimes committed at the facility or referred them to various federal authorities. The report states that happened at least 12 times from 2021 through 2024. The researchers' report analyzed a total 157 incidents from 2015 to 2025. La Resistencia, an immigrant-rights group that advocates for closing the detention facility and ending deportations, said in a news release that the researchers' findings were nothing new. 'We have known about these abuses happening every day for years, and no one has done anything,' said Liliana Chumpitasi, a leader of the group. 'Unfortunately, the detainees have no protection. This place should be shut down right now before someone else dies.' Four deaths have been reported at the facility since it opened in 2004, two of which happened last year. In 2006, a 42-year-old man died of coronary artery disease. In 2018, a 40-year-old man held in solitary confinement died by suicide. In March last year, 61-year-old Charles Leo Daniel died of cardiovascular disease. In October, 36-year-old Jose Manuel Sanchez-Castro died in the facility. His cause of death remains pending, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office. A 911 call from a nurse at the detention center reported he was experiencing fentanyl withdrawal and that he'd arrived at the facility less than a week earlier.
