immigration detainee dies in custody

This is an awful, tragic story about Hiu Lui Ng, who died last week in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, with his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months: Ill and in Pain, Detainee Dies in U.S. Hands.

Ng had been living the American dream. He came to New York from Hong Kong in 1992 and built a life in the U.S. over the last fifteen years, working as a computer engineer, with a house in Queens, a wife who is a United States citizen and two American-born sons.

But when Mr. Ng, who had overstayed a visa years earlier, went to immigration headquarters in Manhattan last summer for his final interview for a green card, he was unexpectedly taken into immigration detention and shuttled through jails and detention centers across three different New England states. And then things got even worse.

In April, Mr. Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he couldn't walk or stand anymore. And last Wednesday, two days after his 34th birthday, he died from cancer in his liver, lungs and bones.

According to his lawyers, when Mr. Ng complained of severe pain that did not respond to analgesics, and grew too weak to walk or even stand to call his family from a detention pay phone, officials accused him of faking his condition. They denied him a wheelchair and refused pleas for an independent medical evaluation.

Instead, according to affidavits, guards at the detention facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island dragged him from his bed, carried him in shackles to a car, bruising his arms and legs, and drove him two hours to a federal lockup in Hartford, where an immigration officer pressured him to withdraw all pending appeals of his case and accept deportation.

They had a man literally dying in front of them, and all they could really think about was deporting him! His lawyers are now demanding a criminal investigation from federal and state prosecutors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the detention system.

Hopefully, Mr. Ng's death will draw more scrutiny to increasing complaints of inadequate medical care, human rights violations and a lack of oversight in immigration detention. It's ridiculous and appalling. No man should be forced to suffer and die like this.

UPDATE: A scholarship fund has been established for Mr. Ng's two children. Checks can be made payable to the "Ng Family Fund." Put account No.
825-31181 in the memo line, and mail the checks to:

Hiu Lui Ng Family Fund
c/o Litao Mai
Merrill Lynch
100 Campus Drive, Third Floor
Florham Park, N.J. 07932

If people would like to wire money, please email the family at:
hiuluingfamily@gmail.com for instructions.