A coalition of black immigrant rights advocacy groups are condemning the recent death of Nebane Abienwi while in federal immigration detention, demanding to know the circumstances that led to the 37-year-old asylum-seeker from Cameroon suffering a brain hemorrhage and then dying while under U.S. watch. “The death is the first in ICE custody in the new fiscal year,” BuzzFeed News reported at the time.
Abienwi had been in the agency’s custody since Sept. 19, after arriving at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Sept. 5. While ICE would not confirm it, The Los Angeles Times reported, he “was probably an asylum seeker, advocates said,” with Mexico seeing an increase in asylum-seekers from Cameroon in recent years. Abienwi had been jailed at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, operated by private prison profiteer CoreCivic, when he was rushed to a hospital. “The medical staff identified the cause of death as brain death secondary to basal ganglia hemorrhage,” ICE claimed in a statement.
The groups, which include the Cameroon American Council, the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project, the Black Immigrant Collective, and the African Public Affairs Committee, noted that the facility where Abienwi had been jailed already has a history of abuse against detainees—including the use of solitary confinement, which is torture—as well as claims of serious medical neglect.
“Black immigrants, in particular, report horrific experiences of anti-blackness, abuse, and harassment while in detention,” the Black Alliance for Just Immigration said. “We believe his death would not have occurred had he not been detained,” said Genevieve Jones-Wright of the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans. “What was the incident that gave way to him having a brain hemorrhage?”
When it comes to Otay Mesa, in 2007 “the ACLU filed a lawsuit alleging that detainees were ‘routinely subjected to long delays before treatment, denied necessary medication for chronic illnesses and refused essential referrals prescribed by medical staff,’” KPBS reported in August. “In February 2016, Gerardo Cruz, who was being held there, died from pneumonia. His family filed a lawsuit alleging that staff ignored his requests for medical care.”
Dozens of migrants have died while in ICE custody since the start of Donald Trump’s presidency, a number that doesn’t include those who died shortly after release, or the at least seven kids who have died after being taken into custody. But deaths under ICE’s watch go back years, and should make it clear that this agency needs to be reined in. But instead, it’s now jailing record numbers of people, in defiance of congressional limits, and in deplorable conditions. Meaning another death under this out-of-control agency is not a matter of if, but of when.