IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE? OH YES IT CAN
Aug. 16th, 2008 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrog‘Scuse me while I bum you out a little. Because I can’t just let this go. It’s entirely possible you’ve heard this one before, but I need to get this out of my system. So bear with me.
ITEM: The NYT tells the one about Ng Hiu Lui, a Chinese national who moved to the US and lived there for 15 years, during which time he graduated from high school, put himself through college, got a job as a computer programmer in NYC, married a local woman and had two kids.
Only he was in the US without a visa, and although he applied for asylum and eventually a green card, he was denied both. Last year he went to his green card interview and was arrested and detained in New England. In April, he began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And a couple of weeks ago, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.
Apparently his jailers accused him faking his symptoms. It took a judge’s order to get him medical treatment, by which time it was too late. He died five days later.
All this is according to his family’s lawyers, and the immigration department isn’t talking to the media. But seeing as how this has happened before, it’s reasonable to assume Ng was not well looked after. The question is why. Plain incompetence? Bureaucratic SNAFU? Or is it the more recent attitudes by some Americans towards illegal immigrants?
I don’t have an answer. But I do know that as long as enough people keep telling themselves that illegal immigrants get what they deserve, and that select forms of torture are okay, as well as throwing Muslims off planes for praying and indefinite detentions in Gitmo, stories like Ng’s are going to continue.
DISCLAIMER: No, I’m not saying anyone tortured Ng or comparing his experience to the Gitmo detainees. I’m saying that it takes a similar level of dehumanization and callousness to allow it to happen, or to make excuses for it. Because there is no excuse for this – not even “But he was in the country illegally, they were right to arrest him”.
Very disappointed,
This is dF
ITEM: The NYT tells the one about Ng Hiu Lui, a Chinese national who moved to the US and lived there for 15 years, during which time he graduated from high school, put himself through college, got a job as a computer programmer in NYC, married a local woman and had two kids.
Only he was in the US without a visa, and although he applied for asylum and eventually a green card, he was denied both. Last year he went to his green card interview and was arrested and detained in New England. In April, he began complaining of excruciating back pain. By mid-July, he could no longer walk or stand. And a couple of weeks ago, two days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.
Apparently his jailers accused him faking his symptoms. It took a judge’s order to get him medical treatment, by which time it was too late. He died five days later.
All this is according to his family’s lawyers, and the immigration department isn’t talking to the media. But seeing as how this has happened before, it’s reasonable to assume Ng was not well looked after. The question is why. Plain incompetence? Bureaucratic SNAFU? Or is it the more recent attitudes by some Americans towards illegal immigrants?
I don’t have an answer. But I do know that as long as enough people keep telling themselves that illegal immigrants get what they deserve, and that select forms of torture are okay, as well as throwing Muslims off planes for praying and indefinite detentions in Gitmo, stories like Ng’s are going to continue.
DISCLAIMER: No, I’m not saying anyone tortured Ng or comparing his experience to the Gitmo detainees. I’m saying that it takes a similar level of dehumanization and callousness to allow it to happen, or to make excuses for it. Because there is no excuse for this – not even “But he was in the country illegally, they were right to arrest him”.
Very disappointed,
This is dF
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no subject
on 2008-08-16 04:56 am (UTC)I lived in the US for about 5 years on an H1 visa. Because I have sort of ethnically-ambiguous looks and a weird accent it was almost random how I was treated. I was an Englishman, a hispanic labourer, a muslim, an Aussie, a south African, an Italian, a jew, a New Yorker (!)... it became a bit of a hobby to see how people's attitudes to me changed when they learned a little about me--sometimes even an about face. "He's not a towelhead, who I hate, he's an Aussie! We love Aussies!"
A colleague once subjected me to a monologue about all these damn foreigners, coming here and taking jobs from Americans.
"Uh, you do realize that I'm one of them, right?"
He looked me right int he eye and said without a trace of embarrassment, "You don't count."
-- JF
no subject
on 2008-08-16 01:10 pm (UTC)I don't know whether it's a strictly an illegal immigrant issue or more to do with race (again). In UK, they certainly don't consider Aussies or other caucasian looking foreigners as "immigrants".
The audacity of government
on 2008-08-17 05:47 am (UTC)The examples are absolutely mind boggling. I mean, more mind boggling than a county electing an illiterate daddy's boy TWICE.
I'll see if I can point you to an MP3 of the show, you can download their podcast for free.
Re: The audacity of government
on 2008-08-17 05:48 am (UTC)