Immigration advocates say the second death of an illegal immigrant being held in a Farmville, Va. jail underscores a lack accountability in U.S. detainee practices. Immigrant detainees at the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, Va. have recently come forward to expose conditions of medical neglect that contributed to the November 2008 death of immigration detainee Guido Newbrough. Autopsy reports show that he died from a virulent staph infection.But as the New York Times reports:
[Newbrough]'s family and fellow detainees say the infection went untreated, despite his mounting pleas for medical care in the 10 days before his death. Instead, after his calls for help grew insistent, detainees said, guards at the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, Va., threw him to the floor, dragged him away as he cried out in pain, and locked him in an isolation cell.Newbrough's death is just the latest questionable death in immigration custody. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement report obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through the Freedom of Information Act found that another detainee died at the same jail in 2006 under similar conditions of alleged neglect. "This facility has failed on multiple levels to perform basic supervision and provide for the safety and welfare of ICE detainees," the six-page ICE report concluded. "The medical health care unit does not meet minimum ICE standards."
Critics maintain that these cases raise questions about medical practices in the jails and private prisons under contract to hold immigrant detainees awaiting deportation rulings, as well as underscore the lack of overall accountability in immigration detention nationwide.
Jeff Winder, an organizer with the Virginia-based advocacy group the People United, was contacted by several inmates at Piedmont for help in getting the truth out. "They were outraged when they saw the statement from ICE in the local newspaper," Winder said in a press release. "They are afraid of repercussions by ICE or by the jail guards because they are speaking out, but were so moved by Guido Newborough's death that they felt compelled to take the risk and expose the conditions that exist in Piedmont."
Advocacy groups including the People United have also been working in opposition to plans by Farmville city officials and the private company Immigration Centers of America (ICA) to construct a new 1,000 bed, for-profit immigrant detention center in Farmville. Farmville's new facility would be a huge boon for private investors capitalizing on the massive influx of detainees into the ICE system over the past year.
Facing South has reported on the large amounts of immigrations raids sweeping the country during the last couple of years. These changing immigration enforcement policy has left federal authorities struggling to cope with rapidly rising numbers of detainees. Arrests have overwhelmed detention systems and local jails, as well as disrupted families and communities. But advocates argue that the new for-profit facilities being built to house the overflow would become just as problem-riddled and lacking in enforcement as the Piedmont Regional Jail.
As Jeff Winder wrote in a guest column last year for Facing South:
Privately-run immigrant detention centers of this type have been plagued by scandal, lawsuits and controversy. The private-prison watchdog group Grassroots Leadership has documented a pattern of abuses. They cite examples including a center in Elizabeth, N.J. that was shut down temporarily when immigrants were awarded $2.5 million in damages after an investigation showed that poorly trained guards served rotting food and physically and mentally abused prisoners. ICE turned the facility over to Correctional Corporation of America (CCA), despite this group also having a documented history of abuses in its facilities. In March of last year, nearly 1,000 immigrant prisoners in the 1,500-bed facility run by CCA in Lumpkin, Ga. went on a hunger strike protesting conditions including lack of medical care.
Private companies like ICA profit from inefficiency in the immigrant detention system. A recent article by the Washington Post documents immigrants languishing in ICE custody for months even after signing a voluntary deportation order. This means more days of space "purchased" from companies like ICA at taxpayer expense.
Prisons are never a fun place. And I'm sure the illegals will make claims, even if they are not true so they get some sympathy. The groups that represent the illegals will also go to any means to make it seems as if the illegals are just innocents getting a bad rap. Sorry the guy died, but if he had done right, he wouldn't have been in the detention center in the first place.
January 28, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply
In this time of high unemployment and overpopulation, it is crucial to start eliminating immigration. Both legal and illegal immigration should be reduced to zero.
February 1, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply
Having lived and worked in Farmville (and specifically having done some work for the Jail directly and via their health care practitioner) this isn't surprising. The doctor sits in the catbird seat, being on the town council, running a private practice in town and gets nice amounts of largesse providing services for the jail. But he can't be really blamed, can he? Since the undereducated and uncaring prison guards don't even seem to report things further up the chain. Staff sees it as a 9-5 job, nothing else. Rotten worms in already rotten fruit...
No one deserves this fate, legal or illegal. If we can't be a nation of laws and abide by them and provide people with due process (of which there is a process to extradite illegal aliens) then we aren't much of a country. Throw out the constitution and let the cowboys run things, those who shoot first and ask questions later.
February 11, 2009 9:20 PM | Reply
The comment mail from Deport Em, and Don McAninch must be from locals or just simple idiots. How can any decent human being put such a stupid comment in writing, let alone coming out of ones mouth.
Being born and raised in Farmville, it does not surprise me that such a thing is still happening to people of color and nationality in Farmville, Virginia. This type of treatment has been going on for my entire lifetime in Farmville. The running of the Commonwealth has always been handled by a family and friend social club of good old boys and barely educated henchmen and women who know when to look the other way in order to keep a job. The comment from "Just Me" makes it plain and simple enough for anyone to understand how such brutality and neglect have resulted in the death of these inmates and how it will likely happen again. It is so true and it not just the doctor who is getting his bank account filled with "I don't care about those people" blood money; its the entire political leadership of the town.
I pray that immigration advocates and the families of the VICTIMS get full justice for these immigrants, legal and illegal. My heartfelt sympathy to them and their families. Remember, Jesus died for all the people, red, yellow, black and white. We are all precious in his sight. Jesus loves all the people of this world. We are all His people and for anyone who harms even one of us they will be punished. God bless you and God please bless AMERICA!
DeLois Walker, Philadelphia.
February 13, 2009 8:31 AM | Reply
I will always say that "The United States is a great place to live (Unless you were born and raised here!)" Detainees have more rights to tax cuts, better living, and much better medical care in holding facilities and public living than any US citizen has ever had. All ICE standards must be met! When there are US citizens that are living in homes to this day "without bathrooms!" Thanks to the US citizens, detainees are able to live here, buy businesses and pay no taxes for 5 yrs. then sell to their kin, again with no taxes being paid! Why doesn't the US just bring everybody here and just say to hell with it's citizens?! Too much money is spent to "house" detainees that aren't even supposed to be here that could be used to promote our U.S. falling economy! Why does the legislation take such good care of detainees who are illegal in even being here when most of them know that if they get here and are detained that they WILL receive the medical care that they can't get at home! Alot of them are here just for that reason and get the care they need and are subsequently deported. So there...they got the care they needed and went back home...what did they lose? NOTHING! To bastardize Piedmont Regional Jail for medical neglect is proposterous; especially until you know and understand the mentality of an inmate/detainee there and what they spend all of their time doing and thinking. If a person is in jail or detained they have 24 hours a day to think of how to get money, for whatever reason. Most of them just know that they should sue medical for neglect whether it be for not recieving treatment, or they are pill seeking because they were hooked on pills or drugs when they arrive at a holding facilty. No one sees that piont and it's never reported that many people "Get off" the drugs they were on because of medical decisions! And..if anyone were to interview another inmate or detainee, all responses would naturally be negative toward the facility that has them where they don't want to be! So should anybody believe everything they hear from and inamte or detainee? Yet recently all these articles have downed Piedmont Regional Jail for their medical practice nad no one knows the mentality of anyone being housed in the jail. The press should be fair and not just try to get a story. I mean..Who would n't want to read about "Another death?" It's interesting and if there's fault somewhere let's play that fact up! It's all bogus and should be reported truthfully!!!!!!! DUE TO ALL THE NEGATIVITY, PEOPLE WHO PAID TAXES EVERYDAY BY WORKING, HAVE LOST THEIR JOBS BECAUSE OF ANOTHER DETAINEE WHO WAS HERE FOR MOLESTING A CHILD. BUT HE HAD ALL THE RIGHTS IN THE WORLD! SO IN TURN..LESS TAXES ARE GOING TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT! THAT REALLY HELPS OUR ECONOMY DOESN'T IT?! THINK ABOUT IT!
February 24, 2009 6:38 AM | Reply
okay well i have to say that all this negativity if very unecassaryy..my husband was in this jail and i dont think its rite for people to come and think its write to judge and mistreat another human being just because theyre not from the same country as you. that doesnt give you the rite to talk bad about them. if they come to this country its for a reason, to have a better life and to acually be someone in life. everybody makes mistakes and learns to be a better person. oviously what these people in this jail have done was wrong but there doing there time and learning from what they did.not all immigrants have done wrong while they were here in the usa and i think for those who have been here all their lifes without any trouble should have the rite to have there citizenship to continue their lifes and be someone in life and have the opportunity to give his or her family something that other people who DONT live in the usa have.and for those immigrants who have made there mistakes in life and been done there time and now are out there living there life well we know that somehow and any shape or form tey have changed from the expirienced they have made while in jail. and i think that since the judge who each and ever immigrant has been assigned to and has been released should be given there green card/citizenship so the can live there life with out any kinds of problems with the feds.
September 6, 2009 10:10 PM | Reply