VivirLatino

The New York Times recently ran a story about how it tried and was trying to find out information about immigrant deaths in detention.

The document that follows, “Detainee Deaths 2004-November 2007,” is the government’s fullest account to date of deaths in immigration detention. Compiled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, it lists the names of 66 people who died, their dates of birth and death, where they were last held, where they died and the cause of death.
But errors and omissions on the list made it difficult for The Times to confirm the identities of many whose deaths had not previously come to public attention, to find out why they died, or to locate relatives.
Along with 13 deaths cited as suicides, 14 as the result of various cardiac ailments and 9 related to H.I.V. and AIDS, the list includes cryptic causes of death like “unresponsive” and “undetermined. ” The list does not mention the immigrants’ nationalities or where they lived in the United States. Some names and birth dates appear garbled.

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