The ICE Death Roster

The fact that the Dept. Of Homeland Security couldn't account for 10 percent of the detainees that died in their custody is troubling. What is going to be more difficult is if and when we discover that a majority of the persons who died in US custody were denied or delayed medical treatment for chronic or emergent medical conditions and that their deaths were likely preventable.

from the NY Times:

What Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials call “the death roster” stands at 104 since October 2003, up from the 90 that were on the list the agency gave to Congress this spring.

The latest search for records began late last month, officials said, when Freedom of Information litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union uncovered one of the 10 deaths that had gone unreported — that of Felix Franklin Rodriguez-Torres, 36, an Ecuadorean who settled in New York and died of testicular cancer on Jan. 18, 2007, after being detained two months at an immigration jail run for profit by the Corrections Corporation of America in Eloy, Ariz.