Thread: SOB----- What Have We Become?

What Have We Become?

Medical Neglect in Immigrant Prisons Reveals America at Its Worst

New America Media, Commentary, Kyle de Beausset, Posted: Aug 17, 2008

BOSTON -- On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, while Bush was preparing to express his "deep concerns" over China's human rights record, Chinese immigrant Hiu Lui Ng was dying in the custody of our great nation's own U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. For months, according to the New York Times, 33-year-old Mr. Ng had complained of excruciating back pain. Officials accused him of faking it.

When a judge finally ordered that Mr. Ng be brought to a hospital, it was discovered that he had a fractured spine, cancer all over his body, and very little time to live. He died five days later, leaving behind a wife and two young sons.

Even as President Bush scolds the Chinese government for its human rights abuses, he is presiding over a humanitarian disaster in his own country. Millions of migrants, authorized and unauthorized, have come to the U.S. in recent years to exercise their unalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What many of those migrants have encountered is a society that is unrecognizable from its founding ideals.

If a U.S. citizen were to die of medical neglect in a Chinese prison it would be an international incident. The death of Mr. Ng is just business as usual for the Bush administration. Mr. Ng is just one of dozens of migrants in the past few years who have died from apparent medical neglect in ICE's sprawling detention system. In a case very similar to Mr. Ng's, Salvadoran migrant Francisco Castaneda went for almost a year in detention without treatment for a very painful penile lesion. When finally allowed to go to a hospital, Castaneda had to have his penis amputated, and he eventually died from cancer that had spread all over his body. A federal judge described the treatment of Castaneda as "beyond cruel and unusual".

While Bush was expressing his "firm opposition" the detention of dissidents in China, his administration was imprisoning migrant children in family detention centers like the Don Hutto Residential Facility. In 2007, then Kevin Yourdkhani, wrote this in crayon from Don Hutto: "I don't like to stay in this jail. I'm only nine years old. I want to go to my school in Canada. I'm sleeping beside the wall...his place is not good for me. I want to get out of the cell. Just pleace give visa for my family."

It's cases like these that have led many U.S. citizens like myself to ask, "What have we become?".

The inhospitable country that the U.S. has become for migrants is largely the result of decades of Democrats and Republicans falling over themselves to promote enforcement-heavy migration policies. From Bill Clinton's harsh reforms in 1996 to the out of control raids, detentions, and deportations of the Bush administration, it seems the nation's politicians cannot get enough of beating up on migrants. We are now at a point where authorized migrants can be deported for insignificant crimes like the jumping of a subway turnstile, and unauthorized migrants are subject to fear and exploitation that would make even some of the worst governments on the planet ashamed.

Ironically, it's these enforcement-heavy policies that are to blame for the ballooning unauthorized migrant population. As studies have shown, it's not the increasing numbers of unauthorized migrants coming in, but the inability of unauthorized migrants to get out that has forced millions to reside within the U.S for longer periods of time. The symbolism of a proposed wall along the U.S.'s southern border rings true. The U.S. is walling itself in, not keeping the rest of the world out.

I make the distinction between authorized and unauthorized migrants above only because there are nativists in the U.S. that make a living off saying they are "anti-ILLEGAL immigrant, not anti-immigrant", capital letters included. While nativists try to paint a fictional black and white picture of legal and illegal immigration, migrants like Mr. Ng are confronting the harsh reality of a broken system with blurry lines, and dying because of it. Mr. Ng, same migrant I described above, was 17 when he entered the U.S. legally on a tourist visa from Hong Kong. He fell out of legal status after he overstayed his visa but was in the process of getting a green card when ICE picked him up. Mr. Ng worked hard, trained himself in computer services, and had recently secured a contract for a company with offices in the Empire State Bulding. Mr. Ng should be living the American Dream but instead he has become a victim of the American nightmare. His wife and children, all U.S. citizens, no longer have a husband and father to take care of them.

These are the harsh realities nativists don't want you to see. For nativists there are only two types of migration: legal and illegal, one good and one bad. Forget the fact that the distinction between legal and illegal didn't exist during our grandparents' times. Nativists don't want you to see that "illegal aliens" frequently sit around the family dinner table with legal migrants and U.S. citizens, while the U.S. government is spending billions to tear these families apart. Nativists don't want you to know about the complicated laws that thrust migrants in and out of legal status all of the time. Nativists don't want you to learn about the children migrants leave behind, two-thirds of whom are U.S. citizens, who suffer from economic hardship and psychological trauma when their parents are picked up on worksite raids. All of this, and Bush has "deep concerns" over human rights in China?

Nativists will read this and proclaim me to be an "amnesty" and "open borders" advocate, but nativists oppose anything that puts a human face on the destructive and unrealistic policies they support. The latest nativist craze, "attrition through enforcement" is basically a plan to inflict mass terror and human suffering upon millions of unauthorized migrants. Since nativists can't deport 12 million people, they've decided the next best course of action is to make migrants so miserable that they leave on their own. You know the U.S. migration debate has gotten out of hand when horrific policies like "attrition through enforcement" have entered the mainstream political discourse.

I am not an "open borders" advocate. I am just appalled that people are being treated like this in the United States of America. Migrant advocates will argue that racism is to blame for all of these abuses. Racism certainly plays a part in all of this, but the truth is migrants are suffering mostly because they had the misfortune of being born on a different piece of the earth than U.S. citizens did. The only real solution to this crisis is to provide opportunities in the countries migrants are fleeing from. Until we live in a world where people migrate out of want, instead of need, we have to treat migrants as humanely as possible. Nativists live in a fantasy world where you can deport away all your problems and the interests of U.S. citizens have to be promoted above all others. The world we live in is interconnected. The interests of U.S. citizens are meshed with the interests of migrants from around the world and the countries that they come from. We ignore these fundamental truths at our own peril.

If President Bush really wants to be in a position to denounce China's government, he should consider a moratorium on raids, detentions, and deportations, until the U.S. enacts comprehensive, practical, and humane migration reform. Perhaps then he won't have to tell the world about the benefits of freedom and democracy. Migrants will tell the world for him.

The author, Kyle de Beausset is Boston-based Guatemalan-American immigrant rights advocate and journalist with the Knight Foundation/MTV Choose Or Lose Street Team '08. He runs a very popular blog, Citizen Orange and helped found another important blog, The Sanctuary, and his writing has appeared in publications like the Harvard Crimson and the Bay State Banner.



http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vi ... f0dcc45445

IF NG HAD BEEN THERE FOR YEARS AND YEARS COMPLAINING OF THIS PAIN, THEN I CAN SEE THE COMPLAINT. THE SAD TRUTH IS, THAT HE ONLY HAD MONTHS TO LIVE WHEN HE ORIGINALLY STARTED COMPLAINING OF THE PAIN. AND HE DID RECEIVE MEDICAL ATTENTION, THATS HOW THEY FOUND OUT HE HAD MESTATITIZED CANCER. AT THAT POINT THERE IS NOT MUCH THEY COULD DO. AND I SUSPECT THERE WOULD NOT BE MUCH THEY COULD DO A COUPLE MONTHS EARLIER. THEY DIDNT MAKE HIM SICK AND HE HAD THIS CONDITION WHEN HE ARRIVED.

Even as President Bush scolds the Chinese government for its human rights abuses, he is presiding over a humanitarian disaster in his own country. Millions of migrants, authorized and unauthorized, have come to the U.S. in recent years to exercise their unalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Exercise their unalienable rights to America? No one has any rights (inalienable or alienable) in America unless they are given the rights by Americans. We don't agree with invasion and criminals. We cannot be forced to accept occupation or 'reconquista'.

I think they should start paying attention to the fact we have citizens in this country who haven't done anything wrong that die horrible deaths and go without treatment as well. To act like this horrible care is just done to migrants isn't true. If it's appalling for them when they aren't citizens, then what have we become when migrants, and illegal aliens get better care than this countries own citizens? They're already telling the old people to weigh out the extreem expense and the financial distruction of their family to whether it's really worth it for a few extra months. What does that say about us? Old people are dispensable but illegals aren't? Old people can't die in peace, but treatments waiting for anyone else who can get here? I mean make up your mind because we have tons of citizens not getting treatment because they don't have insurance and enough money because we've been told you pay for it.....it's not free. I mean if we are entitled to it, then by God let the rest of us in this change.

The problem IS that the legal immigrants and adult American citizens are sitting on their asses with their illegal alien friends and relatives around tables in the United States Ultimately the improvement in the lives of their friends and their family members is up to them. If they are not willing to use their money to improve the lives of their kith and kin WITHIN their home countries how dare they place their burdens on our backs.

What is worse in the majority of cases the inward passage is paid for by friends and family already here.

So we are all nativists because we think that our laws should be enforced ?

Could any one picture any of this crap happening say 30 years ago?

The inhospitable country that the U.S. has become for migrants is largely the result of decades of Democrats and Republicans falling over themselves to promote enforcement-heavy migration policies.

It's largely the result of the government NOT enforcing immigration laws! Dems and Reps along with race-based advocacy groups and the COC, have hidden the true nature of just how insidious illegal immigration had become. We were promised enforcement over 20 years ago, which was never done while nearly 40 MILLION illegal aliens have invaded us and breed millions more that WE have been forced to support - NO MAS!

We DEMAND enforcement, we've had enough!

unalienable

It's inalienable ... what an imbecile ...

I'm a nativist and proud of it. Invaders need to be wary of me because I have more rights than they do. This is my country and the only way they can act the way they do is the fact that my government is holding me back. If my government stops holding me back then the invaders would be very unhappy. I've grown to like the word "nativist". It means American citizen. Loyal American citizen. And thats good.

Originally Posted by USA_born

I'm a nativist and proud of it. Invaders need to be wary of me because I have more rights than they do. This is my country and the only way they can act the way they do is the fact that my government is holding me back. If my government stops holding me back then the invaders would be very unhappy. I've grown to like the word "nativist". It means American citizen. Loyal American citizen. And thats good.

I say Bravo to that!!!!!!!!

Thank you for setting this sentiment straight!