Skip Navigation

Monday, March 15, 2010

Detaining Care, Part One: Mental Hell

by Emily Ramshaw
November 16, 2009  |  1

text size A A A

The detainee at the South Texas Immigration Detention Facility was put on suicide watch after she cut herself with a razor and tried to strangle herself with a shoelace. A physician’s assistant recommended hospitalizing her.

Instead, the chief physician put the physically disabled woman in an isolated cell and took away her crutches, according to inspection reports that don’t name the woman. She was strip-searched and denied feminine products. For days, the woman slid around the floor of the cell on scraped knees, covering herself and the cell in menstrual blood.

When inspectors with Immigration and Customs Enforcement ...

Full Story
Comment Policy

The Texas Tribune is pleased to provide the opportunity for you to share your observations about this story. We encourage lively debate on the issues of the day, but we ask that you refrain from using profanity or other offensive speech, engaging in personal attacks or name-calling, posting advertising, or wandering away from the topic at hand. To comment, you must be a registered user of the Tribune, and your user name will be displayed. Thanks for taking time to offer your thoughts.

You must be logged in to leave a comment. Login | Sign-Up

Comments (1)

  • eamartinez wrote on 11/16/2009 3:01 p.m.

    Great intro. Has it always been this way? If not, how did we get to this point? What are the issues framing the detention policy? Is it funding? Training? A misanthropic approach to the treatment of immigrants -- i.e. institutional racism -- that dictates this result? What are the alternatives, if any? If things are this way, its possible that it's because someone (or a group of someones) wants it this way. Who's happy with the status quo and why?

Related Content