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Immigration Jail Is No Holiday

March 28, 2012 (1 min read)

"The flippant title of the hearing ["Holiday on ICE"] shows a blatant disregard for the more than 110 people who have died in immigration custody since 2003. One of them was my uncle Joseph, an 81-year-old throat cancer survivor who spoke with an artificial voice box. He arrived in Miami in October 2004 after fleeing an uprising in Haiti. He had a valid passport and visa, but when he requested political asylum, he was arrested and taken to the Krome detention center in Miami. His medications for high blood pressure and an inflamed prostate were taken away, and when he fell ill during a hearing, a Krome nurse accused him of faking his illness. When he was finally transported, in leg chains, to the prison ward of a nearby hospital, it was already too late. He died the next day.  My uncle’s brief and deadly stay in the United States immigration system was no holiday." - Edwige Danticat, Mar. 28, 2012.

   Edwige Danticat

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