60 Minutes: Immigrant Detention In America
By Nicole Belle Sunday May 11, 2008 1:00pm
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We've come a long way from "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" and not in a good way. On 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley looked at the horrific conditions faced by immigrants to this country--both legal and illegal--in detention centers including almost criminal medical negligence.
In 2004, United Nations troops were fighting militant gangs in the streets of Haiti. Eighty-one-year-old Reverend Joseph Dantica, a Baptist minister, saw his church ransacked during the unrest, so he fled to the United States and asked for political asylum. His niece, Edwidge Danticat (her last name is spelled differently than her uncle's) says he was taken straight to a U.S. immigration detention center.
"He was essentially arrested?" Pelley asks.
"Yes. I consider it an arrest," Danticat says. "Because ...he had to ask for special relief for him not to be handcuffed. And they did allow him that, but told him that if he ran, they would shoot him."[..]
Records show that two days later, during an asylum hearing, he became violently ill and collapsed. A detention center physician's assistant failed to recognize that Dantica was in serious trouble.
"Help me understand from the records that you've seen precisely what the medic said about your uncle and his condition," Pelley asks.
"It appears that he said, 'I think he's faking,' or something to that effect," Danticat says.
It took four hours to get Rev. Dantica to an outside hospital. His family wasn't allowed to see him. In a day and a half, Rev. Dantica was dead. The medical examiner said it was pancreatitis.[..]
"Yeah. And after being treated like an animal," Danticat says. "Someone who was just trying to escape horrible things, who was so old and sick. Just had to die that way."
But in one sense, Rev. Dantica was not alone: he's among hundreds of sick or dying detainees inside 22 detention centers, plus some 350 state and local jails. The federal lock-ups range from a former warehouse in New Jersey that houses 325 people, to a desert facility near the Mexican border.
The centers are run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known by its initials "ICE."
Inside the detention centers, medical care is provided by another federal agency, the Division of Immigration Health Services, or DIHS. Reporters Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post have been investigating DIHS.
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During this piece, an official was making claims regarding the excelence of health care being provided in detenetion centers - claims such as "some patients are seen almost every day".
Can you imagine a hospital advertising that patients are seen "almost every day"?
the story about the 81 y/o haitian man, dying by himself, was enough to send me into a blind rage.
Thanks, "George"
Where's the lemon chicken and rice pilaf?
Jefferson compromised with americans that thought violent corporal punishment was the correct punishment for slaves objecting to being slaves.
That was america .... and it still is.
Go ahead and congratulate yourselves on being enlightened, kind and generous.
It isnt true. And it wont be true until that element of 'america' is excised. At the moment that wont happen - as that element is in control.
This administration smears feces on the Statue of Liberty.
Wouldn't 22 concentration camps be more accurate?
Immediate emotions after reading this are shame and fear. Our country needs to find its heart again, and quickly.
This is a sad story but not surprising given the anti-immigrant atmosphere in the US right now. Most immigrants, legal and illegal give up life and liberty in the pursuit of happiness in the US. The prayer every morning is that if anything was to go wrong that day, and you end up at the mercy of the justice system, your life would be worth more than that of a dog.
Just another day in George Bush's America.
22 "camps".
geeezzuussss
There was stories about this 2 years ago. WTH was the MSM?
yes, this is a horrible situation that needs a remedy
doesnt change the fact that illegal immigration is a corporatist scheme to keep wages for working americans low so that we are too busy struggling to make ends meet to be able to fight back
Does anyone know if the ICRC (Red Cross) is visiting those detention centers? If not they should be.
As much as the world dislikes or hates this Christian fascist /. terrorist regime under Bush, I can't say that these detention facilities are a bad thing. All illegals should be dragged back to the countries that they come from -- no exceptions. If they come back, prison for a year and then detection. Come back again and we should execute them and return their remains to the country they came from. No exceptions.
It's because they come from countries of "Brown People". George Carlin was right.
Toi Su @ 15:
C'mon admit it, you voted for Boosh.
E_I @ 12:
Doing their job as the propaganda division of the corporate power structure to keep quiet stories that might disrupt the steady flow of profit.
Toi Su @ 15:
Are you insane or just heartless? Anyone with a conscience was heartbroken to see another human being treated like this.
Toi Su @ 15:
Um... by illegals, do you mean to say "Brown People?"
The new sign:
We'll incarcerate your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to live in the tropical paradice that is Gitmo!
Toi Su@15
It`s hard to believe what you are saying.Have you lost your mind?Where has your compassion gone?It`s folks like you that are destroying the world with their self-absorbed viciousness.
I pity you.
Not surprising, I as a US citizen always find it a pain in the arse to deal with the US customs and border patrol either flying in, or driving through the border. So if they treat citizens like shite, not surprising they treat immigrants worse.
ugh! trying to be clever my dumbness shows! - line should have been: to live in the tropical paradise - it's not a pair of dice damn it! :)
so, we kill those who "hate us for our freedom", and we kill those who love us for our freedom . . . i don't think that this is what the founding fathers had in mind
Dandicat is a well-known American writer; now wonder what's it like if you're not related to someone that well-known. Like Boubacar Bah, the Guinean immigrant whose brutal death as result of injuries in detention was reported on the NY Times front page last week and many like him.
innocent bystander @ 25:
Clever, Succinct and Spot On!
Toi Su @ 15:
Well, aren't YOU the enlightened one.
Dr. Acula @ 28:
You misspelled "benighted."
Welcome to the Fourth Reich.
ummm.... this is exactly what frightens me about our country right now. what about the asylum-seekers awaiting trial? what about the mothers trying to feed their children? what about the corporations hiring "illegals" to work? what about the Americans hiring undocumented polish nannies to care for their kids? what about the american kids who are being traumatized by their parents' detentions as we figure out how to fix the broken immigration system....
the list goes on indefinitely, and we can't close our eyes to this anymore.
Toi Su @ 15:
there'd be whole lot of shipments to england then. OR we could just send you off and your ilk to the middle of the Atlantic where you can hate all you want. that would cost a lot less.
uncle joe hussein mccarthy @ 13:
It's the comments of people like Toi Su @ 15 that allow these deplorable conditions for migrant to go unchecked, but it's also the comment above that enables the continued horrendous treatment of migrants. Sure migrants are being exploited by those seeking to make profit, but that doesn't mean that U.S. citizens should support harsh enforcement measures against migrants the lead to the conditions described in this video.
On the contrary the solution is to legalize migrants and allow them to organize alongside U.S. citizens for better wages against those that seek to exploit them.
The other element of this is that people sympathetic to migrants just don't do enough. The see this and say, that's horrible. But where are they when nativist are calling in by the hundreds of thousands everytime a piece of legislation comes up, or a favorable article is written?
Toi Su @ 15:
Clearly, the above sentiment is meant as a joke. Ok, hopefully it was meant as a joke. Ok, ok, maybe Toi Su@15 should crawl back into his hole and emerge in another 10 years with the other locusts (no disrespect to locusts intended).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQagCZPRk2c
"It appears that he said, ‘I think he’s faking,’ or something to that effect,” Danticat says.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQagCZPRk2c
Detention Exercises are going on in Waterloo, Iowa as well. We are prepping our nation for a police state. That is the trade off too many seem willing to take.
Over 300 people arrested...
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEW...
I am sad to say but this kind of thing doesn't surprise me. Poor and inept planning and poor and inept carrying out of plans - who does that sound like? Everything, and I did mean everything, this administartion does is short-sighted and incompetent. January 2009 can't come soon enough.
Must be some of that "best healthcare in the world" that republicans keep telling us we have in America. Maybe its those family values of republicans that allow people to be treated like they were in a concentration camp. Either way I bet no one will be held accountable. Fake christian republicans at their finest. Sad.
ummmm...This was a dirt poor, sick and elderly refugee immigrant from a nation where the U.S. has overthrown the democratically elected leader under the cloak of the U.N.(hey, it's not irrelevant when it does your dirty work!!).
You're surprised he was caged and allowed to die??? Firstly, who was going to pay for his life-saving medical care in the U.S.? State Farm? All State? Some benevolent "HMO"? Seriously. Pancreatitis---thousands of $$$. Good luck having that paid for even if you are a soldier returning from Iraq . U.S. citizens, born and raised, rot and die every day if they can't pay or are not insured.
Secondly, what is the purpose of implementing chaos in a country like Haiti, if not to kill off the peasants who would protest about the size of the boot crushing their head into the dry earth? One more dead Haitian--Mission Accomplished
He may have been a minister but he clearly was not the right color of minister to deserve fair consideration. I think we know how that goes.
This Edwidge Danticat...?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwidge_Danticat
E_I @ 12:
Too busy with britney and paris stories to care about horror stories and real news and REAL PEOPLE and justice.
The majority of the MSM are cocaine capitalists, too busy sucking up for the million dollar corporate welfare, teeth jobs, botox, afternoon tea with Chimpy, BBQ ribs with McNasty, and sexual predating on the endless supply of hopeful interns.
Peter G @ 42:
I saw this at Heathrow airport a few years ago, the immigration people were hostile to a black minister at the passport check point, he was asked why was he visiting the UK, he replied "I live here" that deflated their bubble PDQ.
Orangutan. @ 38:
This is going on all over America, its a pogrom.
Bob @ 34:
That teenygopper should leave his basement and go join some xtian missionary cult, then go tell the 3rd world face to face about the joys of xtian republicanism, see what reception they give him in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia.
reyvn @ 32:
Amazing how the republicans yearn for the values of the darkest medieval ages
The Prison Industry is BIG BUSINESS.
Failing to "resolve" the Immigration Crisis has been very very profitable for the military-industrial-corporate complex.
Exploit the workers.
Arrest them & get paid by the Govt (TAXPAYERS' $$$) to "detain" them.
It's a "win-win" situation .. for somebody.
It's like this. If you want to come to this country, you have to do it LEGALLY. That way, no one can doubt you or short change you, like they do to illegals. Last time I checked, this country is overcrowded. It's common knowledge that illegals get mistreated, and they should be. If you come here, be prepared to get a real job that pays actual money (not $2/hour) and pay taxes like the rest of us.
I don't want to even enter the USA. If the Gestapo sends me to the wrong line, well, it could be very "Sophie's Choice": a line to "eternal limbo", or worse. Lots of foreigners feel this way. Avoid US airspace, and US police!!!!!!!
MountainMan23 @ 49:
Yup. In a nutshell.
Toi Su @ 15:
===============================
If the Indians had taken this stance, America would have no Europeans, Asians, or Africans. Now entry to "the club" is closed?????? Who do you think built America? It was the disenfranchised.
JohnnyBravo @ 50:
news for you, 'illegals' and 'legals' who become 'illegal' due to INS mishandling of their case work, pay taxes when they work for companies.
Temporary guest workers can be tax free but that requires INS paperwork and going through the legal channels, the major difference is that 'legals' can claim back taxes, 'illegals' cant, so they subsidize the 'legal' and the citizen.
MountainMan23 @ 49:
begins with R, I believe
God bless America?
Toi Su@15:
Are you related to Yoo? Mr. Bush's torture sponsor?
Bluesage @ 27:
thanks, bluesage
Theres one of these near here I live. Theres been some protests and controversy over it around town.
http://shutdownhutto.org/
It began operating in the summer of 2006 and currently holds 375 prisoners, approximately 200 of which are children. Previously immigrants with children would be released with a notice to appear before an immigration judge. The policy has changed and now families are being locked up in prison cells until their status is determined. Detainees are a diverse group, they include single men with children, pregnant women, and infants.
I can't believe this. Do you comprehend that THIS was cause people around the world to attack Nazi Germany. Sir Winston Churchill professed such outrages in British parliament and was scoffed at by Chamberlain and his "deals with Nazi Germany".
God certainly does NOT bless America.
What has happened to this country? We have let these biggest idiots in this country do whatever they want and Congress has no courage to stop it. Corrupt republicans and gutless democrats! We are seeing the begining of the end of this great democracy.
Its a joint effort ICE and FEMA. FEMA is taking a very low low profile right now- virtually silent. This won't last.
The good people of this country have no idea what's right around the corner.
Don't forget the people of Germany laughed at Hitler in the beginning as they though he was a joke- a complete moron. This is the same thing in America with George Bush.
Americans will not be laughing when the 2008 elections are cancelled at the very last minute!
So if the Rev. was still in Haiti, would his Pancreatitis have been diagnosed, and his life saved? Do we know this for sure?
Sorry, but thought before feelings is necessary here.
Halliburton wins $386 million$ no-bid contract to build 'detention centres'. Don't forget.
Not Stupid @ 63:
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If he were in Haiti, would he be locked in a prison to die, away from any family? And no freedoms; no comfort.
Not Stupid @ 63:
well, i think that if you deprive someone of their liberty, you become responsible for their welfare, and i feel that joseph dantica's treatment was tantamount to homicide
Enforce the friggin laws , make employers accountable , hire illegals = a hefty fine and jail for the CEO's , no bullshitting around . The jobs dry up and the illegals head home . SIMPLE . To the radical bleeding hearts , will you be happy when half of South America is up here illegally and we American citizens cannot even find a job and if we do find a job the illegal Latinos or Hispanics have driven wages down so low that we are all forced to live like South American peasants or poor while the rich and the corporations prosper all the more ? IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING !!!!!!!!!!! It is a corporate and employer and whore politician problem more than an illegal problem . I can't and don't blame them for coming here , not one bit , I have compassion for them and can only imagine their plight but also I am being realistic and practical although no doubt some of you won't agree and scream racist and on and on . Come here legally , OR please stay home , there are far too many already and yes it is affecting our lives here negatively in more ways than one . # 13 , I agree !
What there is something wrong here in the " good " old us OF a , noway . Just look at King georges power base , there doing just fine .
And Toi Su , nay . Sometimes I get ( a little ) lit up and post some dumb shit , yours is from another world .
I believe in controlling our borders and only allowing legal immigration. But there's a point where we have to treat others humanely regardless of their status. This story sickened me.
Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard
- Lou Reed, "Dirty Boulevard"
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