WASHINGTON — A pregnant woman not getting the pre-natal care she needs. A detainee without follow-up care following major surgery. Someone developing an ulcer due to inadequate care following a bacterial infection.
These are the stories Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-Glen Ridge) said she learned about Tuesday during a 45-minute visit to the controversial Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark.
Mejia (D-Glen Ridge) is one of several Democratic members of Congress from New Jersey who are making regular visits to the detention center, where three detainees have already died at the facility or shortly after their release.
“We think it’s our responsibility to ensure that we’re keeping eyes on that facility, that we are letting our own government know that we are doing our job to monitor it, and to ensure that we are doing our best on behalf of people who are under our nation’s custody,” Mejia told the Globe in an interview following her visit.
On Tuesday, it was just her and an aide, checking the detainees she has learned about through her constituents sharing information about their friends and neighbors, through lawyers representing the detainees, and community organizations tracking President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants.
“It is more of the same,” she said. “Detainees continue to receive inadequate healthcare and substandard food. It’s having an impact on people’s health and well-being.”
After meeting a pregnant woman who said wasn’t getting the medical help needed so she could give birth to a healthy baby, Mejia heard from another woman who indicated that she wasn’t receiving post-surgery care — and it showed, Mejia said.
“I could visibly see that she was walking in pain, she was walking, stepping gingerly, and holding her abdomen and very clearly suffering,” she said.
Another woman was given what appeared to be spoiled sausage after ending her hunger strike at Delaney. After that, she became ill, needed to go to the emergency room three times, never got the medication she needed — at one point, she almost received a muscle relaxant — and wound up with an ulcer.
“So in less than 45 minutes, there were three women either pregnant or with chronic health conditions, who frankly, to me, are being mistreated,” Mejia said.
One of the detainees had a Social Security number and a work permit, and was taken at a court date, Mejia said. She was not “the worst of the worst,” and actually was following immigration laws but still wound up in Delaney Hall, Mejia said.
“It would be infinitely easier to turn away. It would be infinitely easier to turn a blind eye. It would be infinitely easier to say they’re not my constituents, they can’t vote for me,” Mejia said.
“But to me, it’s unconscionable,” she said. “It puts every single one of my constituents, every single American, at risk to be mistreated in the same way. I think it’s my duty to the office and to my constituents to bear witness, to gather information, to collect names, to share stories, and to hold our own government accountable.”
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment after business hours.
Mejia also was one of 88 lawmakers, led by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-Long Branch), who signed a letter Tuesday to the heads of U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asking the agencies for details regarding detainee deaths and allegations of inadequate medical care.
The lawmakers cited more than 50 deaths, not including those who died shortly after being released from detention, and more than 300 complaints in court filings about substandard health care.
“The federal government cannot outsource its responsibility to provide adequate medical care, nor can ICE continue paying private companies to detain people without holding those companies accountable when serious deficiencies in care put lives at risk,” the members wrote.
They are asking for accounts for each facility of deaths, serious medical emergencies, delays in treatment, access to specialists, and problems with providing health care. They also want to know which companies are running which facilities, and what steps were taken when violations were found.
“Detention should never be a death sentence,” the lawmakers wrote. “Yet reports from detention centers across the country have documented delayed and denied medical treatment, failures to provide necessary medications, inadequate treatment of chronic illnesses, insufficient mental health services, and dangerous delays in emergency care.”
Besides Mejia and Pallone, New Jersey members signing the letter included Reps. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), Herb Conaway (D-Delanco), Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), Nellie Pou (D-Paterson), LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing).
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