Denver (CO), .- A national organization of immigration lawyers filed a motion in the Federal Court of Denver asking that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be sanctioned for not having complied with the publication of documents on deaths of detained immigrants. in Colorado and in California.
According to the Center for Education and Enforcement of Civil Rights (CREEC), the lawsuit was filed on May 23 against ICE’s refusal to deliver documents, despite the court order to do so, on the deaths of Kamyar Samimi. and Vicente Cáceres Maradiaga.
Samimi, from Iran and legal resident in the United States, died in December 2017 at the private jail for undocumented immigrants from Aurora (east of Denver), apparently for lack of medical attention.
Cáceres Maradiaga, from Honduras, died in the private jail in Adelanto, California, in May 2017 (the third inmate died in that establishment that year).
In a statement, CREEC indicated that the request for judicial intervention against ICE is due to the fact that it should have delivered the documents on the deaths of Samimi and Cáceres Madariaga in early 2018.
These documents “are part of a larger project that examines documents of other deceased persons in the custody of ICE,” he said.
“We’ve had enough with these (ICE) games.” It’s inappropriate because the public is asking for accountability and transparency, “said Elizabeth Jordan, director of the Immigrant Responsibility in Detention Project at CREEC.
The statement explains that the requested documents are framed in the Freedom of Access to Information Act (FOIA) and that ICE “did not respond to requests for information on conditions in immigration prisons, including whether there are adequate health care services and of mental health “.
According to CREEC, ICE is “trying to hide” what happened with Samimi and Cáceres Madariaga and that concealment of documents is “illegal”.
Therefore, CREEC requested that the federal judge sanction ICE, force him to pay the costs of the legal actions against him and require him to deliver the requested documents.
“Until very recently, ICE claimed that these documents did not exist, but this week (for the past week), CREEC was able to verify that not only documents exist about Mr. Samimi’s death, but that they are damning,” the statement said.
A version of those documents, released on May 21 by Rocky Mountain PBS, argues that on twelve occasions for two weeks the staff of the jail in Aurora could have helped Samimi, but he did not.
The CREEC lawsuit is similar, but separate, from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado against ICE. (EFEUSA)
