Hiu Lui Ng

Hiu Lui Ng, a.k.a. Jason Ng, was a 34-year-old New Yorker who died on August 5 or 6, 2008 in the custody of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.^[2] The editors of The New York Times condemned the death, writing that Mr. Ng "paid the ultimate price for overstaying a visa, and getting lost in a sprawling system that some have likened to the gulag."^[3]

Ng came to New York City from Hong Kong in 1992 at age 17. He went to college, became a computer engineer, married a United States citizen, and fathered two American born sons.^[2] He entered the United States legally but had long overstayed his visa. The government rejected his pleas for political asylum. He missed a court date in 2001 when the order was sent to a nonexistent address, and the judge ordered him deported when he did not show up at the hearing.^[3] His wife, a naturalized citizen, had petitioned to get him legal residency, but he was seized at his final green card interview on July 19, 2007 on the old deportation order.^[4]

While in immigration detention, Ng grew frail and complained for months of excruciating back pain. Officials at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island said it was all an act and denied him an independent medical evaluation. Lawyers finally persuaded a judge to insist on suitable medical treatment for Ng by petitioning for habeas corpus. When he finally saw a doctor, the diagnosis was terminal cancer and a broken spine. He died five days later.^[3] The State Medical Examiners office later declared that he died due to complications of metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma - liver cancer.^[5] His lawyers demanded a criminal investigation in a letter to federal and state prosecutors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the Department of Homeland Security.^[2] An inquiry determined that when Ng told them he was too weak to proceed from his cell under his own power, guards would drag him along the floor.^[6]

Prompted by the death, Congressman José Enrique Serrano wrote in an August 13, 2008 letter to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement: "there is a certain standard we should live up to for everyone we have detained and it is outrageous that anyone would be treated in such a fashion while in your custody."^[7] Members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation requested a Homeland Security investigation into the death.^[8]

In response to the case of Ng and a Washington Post article that identified 30 questionable deaths out of a total of 83 detainee deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency custody between March 2003 (when the agency was created) and March 2008, Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced the Detainee Basic Medical Bill (HR. 5950) in the House and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced the bill (S. 3005) in the Senate. The bill requires "the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish procedures for the timely and effective delivery of medical and mental health care to all immigration detainees in custody, and for other purposes." The bills did not survive past committee.^[9]

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