Disability Law United is tired of ICE lying to us. Today, we asked a judge to make them stop.
Today, because ICE has obscured documents from the public and misled us and a federal judge, Disability Law United asked that ICE be sanctioned. Fifteen months ago, Disability Law United took ICE to court for failing to respond to information requests regarding conditions at ICE’s immigration prisons – including whether there was adequate medical care, mental health care, and appropriate accommodations for people with disabilities in ICE custody.
For months, Disability Law United has repeatedly requested that ICE hand over two Detainee Death Reviews – documentation required by law to be created whenever someone dies in ICE custody. Disability Law United thought the Detainee Death Reviews w
ould shed light on what happened to Vicente Caceres Maradiaga, who died at Adelanto Detention Center in California in May 2017, and Kamyar Samimi, who died at Aurora Detention Center in Colorado in December 2017, about whose deaths little was publicly known. Disability Law United has also requested certain ICE policies governing health care.
Until very recently, ICE pretended like these documents did not exist. This week, Disability Law United learned that, not only does Mr. Samimi’s death review document exist, it is damning. Mr. Samimi died after experiencing callously neglectful medical practices. We can see why ICE was attempting to hide it. We suspect ICE is doing the same thing with Mr. Caceres Maradiaga’s death review.
That’s illegal. Because ICE has obscured these documents from the public and misled us and the judge hearing our case, not to mention wasted our time for months, we asked the judge today to sanction their conduct, award us fees, and order these documents be immediately produced.