H1N1 fears at Port Isabel Detention Center as Human Rights complaints continue 

Homosexual detainee "removed" to Nigeria despite violently anti-gay culture.

Greg Harman

gharman@sacurrent.com

Amnesty International has come and gone but concerns about a lack of due process and complaints of inadequate medical care continue among detainees at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos outside Brownsville.

This week, the appearance of “flu-like symptoms” that has a dozen detainees hospitalized and 54 under restricted movement at the immigration processing facility have added to the unease.

The original hunger strike began in late April with as many as 70 detainees refusing food, and grew to about 200, according to immigration-rights organizations.

To date, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement have admitted only one case of “voluntary fasting” and say that are no confirmed cases of H1N1, also known as swine flu.

“All detention facilities maintain a plan to manage infectious or communicable diseases,” said Nina Pruneda, spokesperson for ICE in South Texas. “None of the 54 that are in that dormitory are exhibiting flu-like symptoms.”

Still, concerns about extended incarcerations, lack of access to legal counsel, poor medical care, and allegations of abuse by guards continue. Concerns that Amnesty International found compelling.

Amnesty told the Houston Press:

Amnesty recently released some startling findings about immigration detention in the U.S. in a report, Jailed Without Justice: Immigration Detention in the United States, including the fact that since 1996 detentions have grown from 10,000 detainees nationwide to 30,000 this year.

“While ICE reported an average detention stay of 37 days in 2007, immigrants and asylum seekers may be detained for months or even years as they go through deportation procedures that will determine whether or not they are eligible to remain in the United States,” the report's summary states.

An earlier study found that of the detainees that are eventually granted asylum spend an average of 10 months locked up. Worst-case scenarios had immigrants locked up for as long as 3.5 years.

Southwest Workers' Union organizer Anayanse Garza said one detainee she interviewed has been in custody at Port Isabel for two years.

“It's supposed to be a temporarily holding facility, but because of lack of due process and all these bureaucratic mistakes that keep happening â?¦ this all affects the cases,” Garza said. “The law is working against you if you are in immigrant.”

Newly sensitized to the horrors of human trafficking, I found the AI report useful in its reminder that detainees “include asylum seekers, torture survivors, victims of human trafficking, longtime lawful permanent residents, and the parents of US citizen children.”

Then there is Bob-Nwachakwu, Heme Chima.

As a gay man with HIV, Heme Chima was terrified of being deported back to his home country of Nigeria, where homosexual acts can result in five years in prison.

After being picked up in February, Heme Chima was held at Port Isabel, where he was diagnosed HIV positive, though insists he was never provided any medication during his stay.

“I was deprived of food and religious rights when I wanted to fast and pray as a Christian,” he wrote in a statement provided to the Current.

He was returned to Nigeria late last month.

Annayanse Garza of the Southwest Workers' Union wrote up her findings for IndyMedia after the initial hunger strike got underway.

To date, ICE has only admitted one case of “voluntary fasting.”

Garza said she has spoken with two detainees that had been fasting for 10 days.

The most prominent protester to date, Rama Carty, was transferred recently to Louisiana en route to being “removed” (in ICE parlance) to Haiti, though some have suggested Carty is not even from Haiti.

"I went for 5 days without food as part of the Hunger Strike," continued Heme Chima. "Some people went for 7 or more. Adewale went for 10 days or more ... He was locked in the clinic without TV, radio, or access to recreational materials."

Pruneda would not comment whether or not there are any open ICE investigations into the detainee complaints.