NEW: Major Settlement Announced in 2008 Wyatt Detention Death
Thursday, December 13, 2012
A federal judge today approved a substantial financial settlement on behalf of the family of Hiu Lui (“Jason”) Ng, a 34-year-old Chinese detainee who died in 2008 while in the custody of immigration officials at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls.
Ng is survived by his wife and two sons, Raymond and Johnny, now ages eight and six respectively, on whose behalf the suit was brought. RI ACLU executive director Steven Brown said today: “Mr. Ng’s death was tragic, and no amount of money can replace the pain and suffering of his family. However, this settlement ensures that some justice has been served, provides some closure to the family, and sends a message that every person detained by the government has the right to be treated humanely.”
Despite repeatedly complaining to prison officials about being in excruciating pain, Ng was first diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and a broken spine less than a week before he died. Until that time, guards and medical personnel at Wyatt continually accused Ng of faking his illness. He was routinely denied use of a wheelchair despite his inability to walk, including when his attorney, who had traveled from New York, sought to visit him. Only a week before Ng died, immigration officials forced him to travel to Hartford, Connecticut for no legitimate reason, where he was urged to drop his appeals. To get him to Hartford, guards forcibly dragged Ng out of his cell, shackled his hands, feet and waist, and dragged him to a transport van, despite his screaming in pain.
In 1992, at the age of 17, Ng, along with his parents and sister, lawfully entered the United States on a visa. In 2001, he married Lin Li Qu, then a permanent legal resident and now a U.S. citizen. At about the same time, INS issued a notice for Ng to appear at a hearing on his immigration status, but the notice was erroneously sent to a non-existent address and Ng never received it. A few months later, an immigration judge ordered Ng’s removal, in his absence and without his knowledge. In the meantime, Ng’s wife filed a petition to have Ng’s legal status adjusted. It was at an interview they attended on July 19, 2007 to discuss that status review that immigration officials arrested and detained Ng on the basis of the faulty 2001 immigration order. Between that time and his death a little more than a year later, Ng was transferred back and forth between at least three different ICE detention facilities.
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Comments:
Kevin McCarthy
4:41pm on Friday, December 14, 2012
May Jason rest in peace. His entry was certainly fraudulent and hence not legal. He arrived on a student or tourist visa and then promptly ignored the requirement that he leave at the end of the visa period. Nine years later, he married a permanent legal resident. You would have to believe in the tooth fairy to think that Jason, or the millions like him, didn't know when he entered, that he would be ignoring the time restrictions on the visa. Their initial entry is illegal because they lied on the visa application about their intent to leave when the visa was up.