Video: Poor Medical Care Linked to Deaths in US Immigration Detention

(Washington, DC, June 20, 2018) – US government records summarizing investigations of the deaths of 15 people in immigration detention support a conclusion that poor medical care contributed to at least eight of the deaths, a group of research and advocacy organizations said in a report released today. More people died in fiscal year 2017 in immigration detention than any time since 2009. Human Rights Watch analyzed, with the help of independent medical experts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) death reviews from late-2015 to mid-2017 and finds evidence in nearly all of them of substandard and dangerous medical care practices including unreasonable delays in accessing care, botched emergency responses and poor-quality practitioner care. One of the 15 cases involved the suicide of a person with psychosocial disabilities who was inappropriately placed in isolation.