The Last Death at Tacoma (?)

How ICE Plays at the Margins to Prop Up Deadly Detention

CW: Death in Custody, Suicide, Fatal State Violence

Death is the ultimate unannounced inspection. It can’t be labeled “unsubstantiated” or “unfounded.” There isn’t a credibility problem with the witnesses. The records are what they are. The body being carried out of the facility is evidence of the “federal program” the facility carries out. The question for the state is how to deal with the stubborn, unmoving, lifeless reality of that body. Once again, ICE chose secrecy and impunity when life ended.

To better understand the flaws in the ICE’s response to the most recent death inside the GEO-owned Tacoma facility, we can look to history. How did ICE and GEO handle the last death? Did history repeat? Fortunately, researchers, journalists, and movement actors in Washington documented that history for us.

Begin with the death announcement itself. ICE death policy requires ICE’s Office of Public Affairs to “post an interim notice of the detainee death to ICE’s public-facing website.” ICE must do this “[n]o later than 48 hours following a detainee death.” That’s an outside limit: “every effort should be made to post the interim notice as quickly as is reasonably possible.” This time limit has been the case since 2018, when, according to reporter Lilly Fowler’s analysis of documents obtained through FOIA by American Oversight, “ICE opted to not follow its own policies with regard to prompt notification of officials and the media about any death that occurs in its custody.”

The ICE death notification released by the agency yesterday (March 11) for a death that occurred on March 7 would seem to violate this 48-hour rule. How does ICE get around this? For the first time since at least 2017, the agency claims that “48 hours” is actually “two business days.” This claim is baseless. There’s absolutely no support for it in policy or in historical practice. But the people who are working in ICE’s public affairs office and the Acting ICE Director seem to believe that conduct is acceptable, because, you know, apparently a death in custody isn’t something that should ruin anyone’s weekend.

Still, it’s odd that despite taking more time than agency policy allows, the government can’t tell the public or Congress a preliminary cause of death. It’s listed as “unknown.” Historically, that has meant: “[it’s really bad and embarrassing, so we’ll just fudge and hope everyone moves on.]”

What’s happening during this 5-day period when the agency is punting to the “Tacoma Fire Department”? Records obtained on the previous death showed there was a ton of internal handwringing about the warden of Tacoma - who works for a private, publicly traded, for-profit entity and is not a medical professional - intervening in the hospital care of the decedent. Bruce Scott apparently went beyond what even ICE thought was his proper role.

He “talked with the attending and was told of the poor prognosis for this patient. He then indicated to the attending he agreed with her not [to] do any medical interventions other than basic supportive care. Unfortunately this was passed on to the nursing team in ICU,” one email said. 

The clinical director of the ICE Health Service Corps, which provides health care for detainees, then described speaking to a doctor: “I let her know our NWDC [Northwest Detention Center] warden does not have any medical authority over this patient, and she would need to work through me and our IHSC administrative team for progress reports and direction of medical care.”

So during the last death at Tacoma, the warden — not ICE — communicated with medical providers about when to pull the plug. Fowler’s reporting and the ICE documents show this was a point of contention:

Another email references the warden’s discussion with the trauma surgeon.

He “is adamant ... that the call was ICE's, not his. I'm dubious. ... I think he has potential, but he is still in the BOP [Bureau of Prisons] warden mentality. I'm hoping that you will raise this issue with GEO [GEO Group is the private prison company ICE contracts with to run the Tacoma detention center] at a higher level so word gets back down to the warden that he provides a service, running a business, and is not the final authority on any matters relating to the detainees,” the email reads. 

By Sunday, Nov. 18, three days after being admitted into the hospital and after a battery of tests, Amar was officially declared dead.

Yet documents show Amar remained restrained in his hospital bed.

Setting aside the delayed notification, policy violation (or unannounced policy change), and lack of hard details on how this 61 year-old man in solitary confinement died, we need to start collectively acknowledging that the information the notification does provide is demonstrably false. It says: “All people in ICE custody receive . . . 24-hour emergency care. At no time during detention is a detained noncitizen denied emergent care.”

ICE itself admits this is not true. And what’s so galling about the fact that the agency keeps printing this exculpatory language in death announcements is that it’s precisely in death cases that the agency finds detained noncitizens were denied emergent care. We know because the agency provided those admissions in response to a FOIA request for Mortality reviews. In Kamyar Samimi’s death at GEO’s Aurora facility, “access to EMS care was delayed.” The emergency medical care in Olubunmi Toyin Joshua’s death was a disaster. Roger Rayson’s care in GEO’s LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana was so bad ICE health reviewers and the coroner couldn’t rule out homicide as a cause of death.

ICE mortality reviewers are not alone in reaching a conclusion opposite to the one ICE’s Press Release suggest. DHS-OIG found Jessie Dean “was not provided timely or appropriate care by medical staff at the Calhoun County Jail in Battle Creek, Michigan.” And at Tacoma itself — the very facility ICE is talking about in this press release — an ICE mortality review found “Mr. AMAR’s medical and behavioral health care at NWDC was not provided within the safe limits of practice.” This report from Congressional oversight staff lays out numerous other examples of these conclusions being reached by people who look at the records.

Most recently, NPR’s Tom Dreisbach, who clawed out ICE FOIA records documenting “barbaric” and “negligent” conditions inside ICE lockups, published details of a 911 call in Melvin Calero’s death at Aurora back in 2022. (You can listen to it for yourself at the link). The GEO staff at the facility didn’t know the street address where they worked when they called 911. It delayed emergency medical care. The same occurred, ICE found, in Kamyar Samimi’s death.

We’ve noted this toxic misinformation that borders on Russian propaganda before. We’ve raised concerns internally with ICE stakeholders about the gaslighting. They seem not to care.

So, how would ICE defend including this blanket statement in its press release? The short answer is “it doesn’t have to.” The longer answer is, “well, maybe the emergency care was delayed, but that doesn’t mean it was ‘denied.’ The person just (quite inconveniently) died before they could receive it.” Or maybe, “That’s all the past. We’re only talking about now. And the future. Time is a flat circle.” Who knows?

This keeps happening because literally no one with any power to influence ICE’s post-death behavior cares that the agency spreads misinformation when people die. Or, at least they don’t care enough to work over the weekend asking questions.

And until that changes, they’ll just keep doing it.

We as a community of people who value life can take heart, through. The concerted efforts of families, communities, researchers, and journalists to highlight and investigate in-custody deaths have created conditions that reduce them. This system might not be capable of shame, but it is susceptible to examination and documentation.

There are a lot more questions about this death at Tacoma. Hopefully by continuing to ask them together and share the answers, it will be the last.