13 August, 2008
· Filed under general government fuckery, general healthcare fuckery, immigration, prison system, torture · Tagged Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, Hiu Lui Ng, immigrant detainees, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Judge William E. Smith, Larry Smith, prisoner mistreatment, warden Wayne Salisbury
Today the NY Times published yet another horrifying article about an ICE detainee’s death. Hiu Lui Ng, an immigrant from Hong Kong who had been living in the U.S. since he came over at the age of 17 in 1992, died in custody last week after months of negligence and living in excruciating pain.
He was 17 when he came to New York from Hong Kong 1992 with his parents and younger sister, eyeing the skyline like any newcomer. Fifteen years later, Hiu Lui Ng was a New Yorker: a computer engineer with a job in the Empire State Building, a house in Queens, a wife who is a United States citizen and two American-born sons.
But when Mr. Ng, who had overstayed a visa years earlier, went to immigration headquarters in Manhattan last summer for his final interview for a green card, he was swept into immigration detention and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.
In April, Mr. Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And last Wednesday, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of [ICE] in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months. [...]
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13 August, 2008
· Filed under life · Tagged asshole landlords, Beck, jobs, Rio Grande Valley, teaching
I know I’ve been a total slacker on posting as of late. It’s been an insane month. Two days before I was scheduled to move cross country back home to the RGV, I got a job offer as an adjunct lecturer at a NY community college. I still had to move, since I’d already given up my apartment, but I’m moving right back in a couple weeks to start the Fall 08 semester.
I have no savings and no place to live, and my landlord is being a total dick about giving me back my deposit because he’s a greedy bastard. So I might be homeless for a few days at the end of the month… ay yi yi!
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6 August, 2008
· Filed under general assholery, general government fuckery, immigration, prison system · Tagged children, Hutto, ICE, residential facility
I stumbled across this video via The Sanctuary, and I’m appalled at some of this information. I’d known about the cruelty in prisons and detention centers, and about the careless tactics used by the ICE.
But how did I not get the memo that 1) there exists a “residential facility” in the United States that keeps children detained as well, and 2) that this horrible establishment resides about 30 miles north of Austin?!! (Apparently there’s also a second one called Berks in Pennsylvania. If you know about any others, leave links in the comments section, because I intend to learn more and write up a massive post about this.)
Naturally, I’m now doing some more research on the T Don Hutto facility for more information, and came across this wonderful little blog:
From T. Don Hutto: America’s Family Prison
In May 2006, the Department of Homeland Security opened its first prison for immigrant families 30 miles north of Austin. It is the first family detention center in the country to be based on the penal model, though plans were quickly made to build more.
The T Don Hutto facility holds men, women (some pregnant), children, and infants, none of whom have a criminal past. Administered by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the country’s largest for-profit corrections company, Hutto lacks proper licensing and medical facilities, and has been proven to traumatize families.
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