ICE Detainees In Newark Allege Poor Medical Care And Mistreatment – Gothamist

Detainees at the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the New York/New Jersey area and their advocates say they are receiving substandard medical care, with Pepto-Bismol prescribed for prolonged stomach ailments and Bengay for a broken rib, in addition to delays in treatment, lack of access to specialized care, and disparaging comments by doctors and nurses. 

The complaints came from more than a dozen of the approximately 600 immigrants who are held at the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark while they await adjudication of their deportation cases. Some said they were extremely ill with bacterial infections over the last three months—vomiting, fainting and fearing they would die in their cells—but they weren’t getting proper treatment. 

“I’m still human, like them, ya know what I’m saying?” said Joel Abreu Garcia of the Dominican Republic, who claimed he was cursed at by a doctor for being an immigrant. “If they can’t take care of us like they’re supposed to, do something else—send me to another jail, or give me my freedom and I can go myself to the hospital.”

Another detainee, Dominic Alexander, was in near tears describing weeks of nausea and headaches. “I don’t want to die here,” he said. “I’m terrified about what’s going on with my body.”

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Essex County officials and medical staff at the jail deny the immigrants’ allegations, and said that detainees are likely to get better care at the jail than on the outside, without medical insurance or ready access to doctors. They also said that immigrants have an incentive to cry mistreatment because medical hardship could help their cases or get them bonded out. 

“We always go by the notion of medical necessity,” said the jail’s medical director, Dr. Lionel Anicette. 

He confirmed a handful of recent bacterial infections, but said it wasn’t unusual given that detainees come from all over the world and often don’t have healthy histories.

Although several detainees said it can take days before they are brought to the medical unit after requesting to see a doctor, Anicette said all requests are filled within 24 hours—though non-emergencies could take longer. The medical unit has about 125 employees, including three doctors and four nurse practitioners who see an average of about 15 patients a day. Nurses are available 24 hours and visit all housing areas twice a day, he said. Anicette insisted that his staff—many of whom are immigrants themselves—treat detainees with respect and empathy. He denied the allegation about cursing. 

But the crux of the immigrants’ claims are backed up by First Friends of New York and New Jersey—a nonprofit that sends volunteers to visit the jail—which also fielded an uptick in medical complaints late last year. And New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, which has a program to aid detainees on medical matters, said access to more than basic health care in the four immigration jails in New Jersey, including Essex, is difficult to come by.

Gothamist/WNYC began to examine medical complaints after being contacted by detainees in a series of phone calls. In two subsequent visits to the jail late last year, one immigrant in the infirmary revealed a rash on his body that he said hadn’t been properly treated in months. As The Walking Dead played on an overhead TV in the waiting area, Fernando Fernandez-Dominguez, 69, who has lived in the United States since 1973 and spent the last two-and-a-half years locked up, complained that even though the jail’s medical staff referred him to an outside specialist, it was taking too long for ICE to approve the request. 

“It’s itchy like hell,” said Fernandez-Dominguez, a father of three children who he said served in the U.S. military.

Anicette said he could not speak about a specific detainee’s case due to privacy laws. But he said skin infections are particularly challenging to treat among immigrants from around the world. He said he does as best as he can for each patient and has gone so far as to request a special low-altitude flight to California for a detainee who needed treatment there following a stroke. 

Another detainee who agreed to an in-person interview with Gothamist/WNYC had an arm in a sling, and said he had nerve damage from a fall at the jail but had not received an MRI. When he goes to the medical unit, he said, they ask him about his immigration case and if he’s getting deported soon. “I’m in jail but I still have rights,” Carlos Sierra said. “Deport me or release me.”

There’s a sense among detainees that proper medical care is prolonged because the nurses and doctors know they’re likely on the verge of being deported anyway. Those held at the jail are civil detainees, not criminally-charged prisoners, who are either awaiting hearings on their orders of deportation, or for travel papers to come through so they can be deported. Most have criminal histories, according to jail officials. 

“Basically, they’re doing what they normally do—you get sick, you get deported, they don’t have to deal with you anymore,” said Ernest Francois, who has been detained for more than two-and-a-half years. “But at this point I’d rather get deported than die here, you know what I mean?”

Francois said his country of origin, Haiti, has no record of him and refuses to admit him—he left 35 years ago, at age 11. He was transferred to the Essex County jail after serving a prison term for manslaughter, and he said medical care is worse at the jail than in prison. His long tenure at the jail has earned him a leadership role, paid $21-per-week, that allows him to meet with the wardens about issues like medical care. 

“They often accuse us at medical: You’re just making it up,” said Francois, who has four children in the United States. Francois said he needed surgery for hemorrhoids and an X-ray for a back injury, neither of which he had received at the time of this interview in December.

According to a statement from ICE’s office in Newark, detainees are referred to specialists outside of the facility “as medically necessary without consideration to cost.

“ICE takes very seriously the health, safety and welfare of those in our care and is committed to ensuring that detainees receive the appropriate medical treatment to promote their health and well-being,” the statement said. “Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment the detainees arrive and throughout their entire stay.”

Two other complaints were persistently brought up by detainees. They said they don’t have access to their own medical records and are sometimes not told what medication they are being provided. A recent lawsuit alleging that an assault victim at the jail was given improper medical treatment also made the claim that the victim was not provided his medical records. Jail officials flatly denied those accusations.  

Around the country, ICE detention facilities have been plagued with medical issues. Human Rights Watch says that of the 74 deaths in immigration detention since 2010, medical experts have concluded that “medical care lapses contributed to or led to 23 deaths in 19 different detention facilities.”

Such national controversies over ICE has led to political scrutiny about the Essex contract, which brings this Democratic county as much fas $3 million a month. So officials there are implementing a series of reforms. Last month, County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and the board of freeholders created a civilian task force to monitor conditions at the jail. A medical expert will serve on the task force. 

In addition, a new inmate-detainee advocate is in place, reviewing the 700-odd grievances that are sent in via tablets, which are newly available in jail dorms. Last year, two new wardens were appointed to run the jail, and they’ve increased the amount of time detainees are allowed outside of their cells. The wardens also told Gothamist/WNYC they’ve introduced halal meals and a 7 p.m. snack, like milk and cookies.

Essex contracts with a company, CFG Health Systems, to run the medical unit for about $13 million a year. CFG has faced criticism in the past. Its contract at the jail in nearby Hudson County, where New York ICE detainees are held, was terminated after six deaths there in 2017 and 2018. In a suit filed last week, a former Hudson detainee with severe psoriasis and arthritis said after a dermatologist made an “urgent” referral to a rheumatologist, he wasn’t seen by that specialist for six months. And last month, CFG was sued by a former Essex detainee who claimed a failure to provide proper follow-up care after he was beaten up in the jail.

Essex County officials praised CFG’s work at the jail. And in a statement, CFG said patients get timely care—they don’t have to wait longer than they would on the outside—and money is never a factor. “When consultation with outside providers and specialists is required, arrangements are made within timeframes dictated by the patient’s diagnosis, level of acuity, community standards and the schedules of outside specialists,” the statement said. 

Anicette said in his 12 years at the Essex jail, ICE had never denied a request for outside treatment. “If it rises to the point that they need to see someone, we get it done,” he said. “I can guarantee you that none of my providers know what an X-ray costs. It’s not a concern of theirs.” 

Responding to the allegation about asking detainees about the status of their deportation proceedings, Anicette said that would only be done to gauge their stress level, which “could be a manifestation of a mental health condition.” 

A 2018 report on New Jersey ICE detention from the nonprofit Human Rights First found medical problems at Essex but also at the Hudson County Jail and the Elizabeth Contract Detention Center, which is privately run. Problems cited included inadequate health screenings during intake, denial of medical and dental care, insufficient mental health care, and delays in treatment. 

In 2016, Essex was cited by ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight for negligent medical care that led to the death of a detainee who died of heart disease. He never received an EKG that was medically necessary, nurses failed to check his blood pressure after being ordered to do so by a medical provider, and an officer allowed a detainee to perform CPR. 

There are systemic failures related to intake of new detainees and follow-up care when it comes to chronic conditions, according to Karina Albistegui Adler, who monitors medical conditions at the New Jersey jails for the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. 

“When you’re seeing medical conditions that are less prevalent—that are a little bit more complex—that’s when I see our clients get into situations with their health that become dangerous and health threatening,” she said. “As far as even outside specialist care, we’ve seen months go by before they’re seen or anything is arranged.”

Unlike asylum seekers, who tend to be younger and healthier, most of those at Essex were either living freely in New Jersey or incarcerated before they were arrested by ICE. Therefore, their time in jail may sever medical care they’re accustomed to receiving for chronic conditions, medical experts and immigration advocates said.

Cesar Urvina-Gallegos, 60, moved to the United States from Ecuador in 1977 and spent years working for Somerset County in New Jersey, he said. He hurt his back on the job in 2004; the subsequent back surgery and a painkiller prescription begot an opiod addiction, and then an arrest for possession of heroin. That landed him in ICE custody. “I’ve been in this country so long, I basically think like an American,” he said. “I am an American…I just got involved in the opioid situation—that could have happened to any American.”  

He needs glasses, he said, which as of this November interview he had not received. And he wants his dentures replaced, but the dentist at the jail told him to instead to blend his food. “I have a blender in here? That I consider an insult to my intelligence. I consider it mean,” he said.

Jail officials say glasses and dentures are provided, and they are equipped to care for older detainees and those jailed for long periods of time.

Essex was slammed last year by federal inspectors for the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security for a variety of inhumane living conditions, including inappropriate strip-searching, lack of outside recreation time, and moldy food that detainees claimed caused stomach illness. Medical care was not, however, flagged as an issue.

Matt Katz is a reporter at WNYC News covering immigration, hate, and security. You can follow him on Twitter at @mattkatz00.