Details Emerge About Death in ICE Detention

Nina Bernstein follows up today on a story she first broke back in April about a Pakistani man who died in immigration detention and then vanished from DHS's records.

Tanveer Ahmad, it turns out, was a longtime New York City cabdriver who had paid thousands of dollars in taxes and immigration application fees. Whether out of love, loneliness or the quest for a green card, he had twice married American women after entering the country on a visitor’s visa in 1993. His only trouble with the law was a $200 fine for disorderly conduct in 1997: While working at a Houston gas station, he had displayed the business’s unlicensed gun to stop a robbery.

The gas station was robbed 7 times in 35 days.  But showing the gun was enough for ICE to later arrest and jail him, then let him languish untreated in the crucial time after his heart attack.

By the time Mr. Ahmad was taken in handcuffs to immigration court on Aug. 17, 2005, all he wanted was to return to Pakistan. He insisted on giving up his right to contest deportation, even though he faced a 10-year bar on returning, said Kenneth M. Schonfeld, an immigration lawyer hurriedly hired by Mr. Ahmad’s friends, all cabdrivers from Pakistan.

“He couldn’t stand the thought of having to stay in custody,” the lawyer said, and he seemed “really terrified” of the Monmouth jail. “It’s a place that would frighten or depress anyone.”

Three weeks later, Mr. Ahmad was dead. Since he had no known health problems, his friends were shocked and disbelieving. They were told that Mr. Ahmad had suffered a heart attack in the jail, and despite all efforts to revive him, had been pronounced dead in a hospital emergency room at 5:51 p.m. on Sept. 9. An autopsy cited “occlusive coronary atherosclerosis.”

His friends did not know that the jail had a history of detainee complaints of medical neglect and physical abuse, and did not allow guards to send detainees to the medical unit without prior approval.

Red tape and emergency medical treatment don't mix well, especially when guards assume the detainee is lying.

According to the jail’s internal investigation, Mr. Ahmad walked into the medical unit shortly after 3:50 p.m. on Sept. 9 and “was seen immediately.” But the letter scrawled by a fellow inmate contended that before he showed up there, Mr. Ahmad’s pleas for treatment had been rebuffed by a guard for an hour.

For three years after Ahmad's death, it was as though he had never existed.  As late as February of this year, the federal government denied that it had any record of his death.  Whatever Ahmad did or didn't do, did he deserve to die for it?

The message is clear enough to intending immigrants to the U.S., and I'll take the trouble to spell it out for anyone who doesn't know already: Don't bother coming.  This country doesn't want you.  Go somewhere else, stay at home.  Don't come here looking for asylum.  Don't come here looking for a better life.  Take your dreams and your ambition elsewhere.

I don't have to worry about deportation for myself or my family, but it is hard to escape the message transmitted to my clients by the government day after day, regardless of who is in charge.  STAY OUT.  NO VACANCY.  There are occasional respites, but otherwise the message is the same.  It is hard to remain optimistic forever.  And for some, the message is coming through loud and clear.