Man whose US immigration notice was sent to the wrong address is detained with untreated spinal cancer until he dies, denied access to his wife and children: “A Hong Kong computer programmer who had legally resided in the US for 15 years (since he was 17) and fathered two American children went for his final green card interview and was locked up, detained until he died of cancer that the DHS refused to treat him for. He had overstayed a visa (the DHS sent a key notice to the wrong address), and this prompted the DHS to lock him away and demand that he waive all right to immigration appeal and be immediately deported. In detention, his complaints of excruciating back pain were treated as fakery, and he was dragged around in shackles after he lost the ability to walk, taken on long, bumpy drives while official demanded that he drop his immigration appeals. The jailers who caused his death were private contractors with fat deals with the DHS to lock up immigration detainees.

As he lay dying, his family — wife and two children, aged 1 and 3 — were denied access to him while the warden considered their request to visit.

‘Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses…’

(Via Boing Boing.)

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There’s an awful lot of injustice in this article, so please do not read it if you’re in a rotten mood.

Having married a foreigner, I’ve learned a lot about the immigration laws of this country and I can totally see how this happened. The immigration laws are full of heartbreaking stories like this with little remedy to get it straightened out. I’m against the legislation that many people are trying to put through that gives all illegal immigrants a shot at becoming citizens – that’s just uncalled for. However, this case definitely needs attention.

Having been through this ringer and about to start it again next January when the wife applies for citizenship just makes it all the more important. I wish this woman well. The article sums up the immigration problem quite well, however… although one could apply it to other portions of our country’s history over the past 7 years:

“It makes me feel like we’re all just numbers,” she said of her case. “I see people writing ‘this is my country.’ It really isn’t. It belongs to the government and they decide who stays and who goes … you think you’re free; you’re really not.”

Sometimes, I just want to move out of here.

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