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“The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of California by Escobar Mejia’s three siblings, alleges negligence, deliberate indifference to serious health and safety needs and wrongful death,” The San Diego Union-Tribune reports. “The complaint argues that officials held Escobar Mejia in conditions that they ‘knew would expose him to a deadly disease.’” This has been the norm at multiple detention camps: Earlier this month, a federal judge slammed another private prison profiteer, GEO Group, for the “appalling” handling of the virus inside its facility, also in California.
The Guardian reported in May that Escobar Mejia had complained to his sister about his treatment while detained at Otay Mesa, saying he wasn’t receiving proper care for his diabetes. He also suffered from “high blood pressure, heart problems and an amputated foot,” the report said, all of which should have made the case for him to be allowed to shelter at home. But ICE refused and he became sick amid the horrific outbreak at the facility.
The Union-Tribune reports that the lawsuit states that “[b]y the time defendant transported him to the hospital, Mr. Escobar was gasping for air and dying. He received a blood transfusion but he had already been too weakened by the virus.” In letters released days after the death, dozens of immigrants still detained at Otay Mesa released a letter slamming treatment of the man, and pleading with a number of top elected leaders from the state to help secure their own release.
”Not until Mr. Escobar was so sick that he could not get up and was laying in his bunk after throwing up in his trash can did they finally decide to move him out of M pod,” the detained people wrote. “Now instead of taking him straight to the hospital knowing he was diabetic and at higher risk, they took him next door to L pod where all the COVID-19 positive and sick individuals were at. Finally, when he could no longer breathe he was taken to the hospital. By this time, too much time had been wasted and it was too late.”
Officials in charge at this facility have known exactly what they’ve been doing because they’ve been trying to cover it up, blocking detained people from making phone calls to advocates out of supposed “safety concerns.” Otay Mesa Detention Resistance tweeted at the time, “[t]his is dangerous because we don’t know what abuses are happening inside if we can’t receive calls.” Officials eventually reversed this decision following public outrage.
“These facilities don’t care about the people or the facts of their lives,” Escobar Mejia’s sister Rosa told The Guardian. “These are private institutions making money off of immigrants.” The Union-Tribune reports that following his death, detained people at Otay Mesa wrote notes apologizing to his relatives for his death. “The only contact Escobar Mejia’s siblings received after his death, the lawsuit says, was from the funeral home demanding $1,700 to cremate their brother,” the report continues.
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