A person detained and held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement suffered a heart attack and died but should have been sent to the hospital, per an inspector general’s report reviewed by BuzzFeed News.
The draft report from the Department of Homeland Security disclosed the death of a 51-year-old Bahamian man, held in a Mississippi jail by ICE for more than a year, who reported having chest pain in December 2020. Staff in the facility’s clinic tended to the man but did not send him to the hospital, the report said.
“We identified violations of ICE detention standards that threatened the health, safety, and rights of detainees,” reads the unreleased report.
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The detainee, Anthony Jones, told the jail staff he felt a burning pain in his chest and arms. The clinic gave him aspirin and oxygen, but Jones’s pains continued. The report says jail staff also performed an electrocardiogram before releasing him. An hour later, an officer discovered Jones unconscious and slumped in a chair. First responders could not revive him.
The report plainly stated that had clinicians compared the results of the detainee’s examination to ones in his file from the prior year, it would have alerted them to his need for urgent hospital care. “It should have prompted the medical staff to call 911 and send the detainee to the hospital,” said the document.
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“While deaths in ICE custody are exceedingly rare, these events are unfortunate and always a cause for concern,” an ICE representative told BuzzFeed.
The Biden administration has committed to assessing conditions at ICE facilities nationwide. The number of immigrants detained by the agency has recently spiked from 15,000 to 26,000, according to BuzzFeed, after a surge in arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The report also found the Mississippi jail failed to comply with required COVID-19 safety measures, including a lack of personal protective equipment, which may be responsible for repeated outbreaks. More than 600 people held there have tested positive for the virus. Overall, an estimated 20% of ICE detainees have received at least one dose of the vaccine.