The Broward Transitional Heart in Pompano Seashore, the place ICE says Marie Ange Blaise was declared lifeless on Friday night.
John McCall/South Florida Solar-Sentinel/Tribune Information Service
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John McCall/South Florida Solar-Sentinel/Tribune Information Service
A lady from Haiti died after spending over two months in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, the company introduced on Tuesday.
Marie Ange Blaise, 44, was pronounced lifeless on Friday night time on the Broward Transitional Heart in Pompano Seashore, Fla. ICE says her reason for dying is underneath investigation.
Talking on the Home flooring Wednesday, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., urged that Blaise had not been offered ample medical care.
“Marie had been complaining about chest ache for hours,” stated Cherfilus-McCormick, who’s the solely Haitian-American in Congress. “They gave her some drugs and instructed her to go lie down. Sadly, Marie by no means wakened.”
NPR has reached out to ICE for extra info. In its Tuesday discover, the company stated that “at no time throughout detention” is a detainee “denied emergent care.”
“All individuals in ICE custody obtain medical, dental and psychological well being screening and 24-hour emergency care at every detention facility,” it stated.
Congress requires ICE to make public all studies about in-custody deaths inside 90 days. Within the meantime, Cherfilus-McCormick plans to go to the Pompano Seashore facility and is calling for a “full, unbiased investigation” into Blaise’s dying.
“Her family members deserve solutions,” she stated. “They deserve accountability — like so many immigrant households who’ve their family members lacking and who’re harm.”
One other South Florida Democrat, Rep. Frederica Wilson, stated in a tweet that she was “heartbroken and livid” to study of Blaise’s dying. She known as on members of Congress to go to ICE amenities for themselves to extend oversight of the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies.
“What number of extra tales do we now have to listen to of immigrants being mistreated at these black gap detention facilities?” she wrote. “When are we going to get solutions?”
Blaise was transferred between a number of amenities
ICE says Blaise entered the U.S. with out admission or parole “on an unknown date and place.”
In keeping with the company, U.S. Customs and Border Safety (CBP) encountered her on Feb. 12 on the worldwide airport in Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, trying to board a flight to Charlotte, N.C.
“On the identical date, CBP issued Blaise a Discover of Expedited Removing, charging inadmissibility as an immigrant with no legitimate immigrant visa,” it stated.
Two days later, CBP transferred her to ICE custody in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She was despatched to Louisiana the next week, the place she spent over a month detained on the Richwood Correctional Heart. On April 5, she was transferred to the detention middle in Pompano Seashore, Fla. She died there practically three weeks later.
Six different individuals have died in ICE custody for the reason that begin of the 2025 fiscal yr, in line with company knowledgewith half of these deaths occurring since January.
The Trump administration touts its immigration crackdown
Information of Blaise’s dying comes because the Trump administration ramps up its aggressive marketing campaign of raids, detentions and deportations.
On Wednesday, ICE introduced it had arrested 66,463 individuals with out authorized standing — and deported 65,682 of them — in Trump’s first 100 days in workplace.
Tricia McLaughlin, the Division of Homeland Safety’s assistant secretary of public affairs, instructed NPR’s Morning Version that there can be extra deportations forward.
“What we’re doing is a change within the tradition this primary hundred days, and we’re seeing success,” McLaughlin stated. “However we will see these numbers improve within the subsequent hundred days.”
Trump’s immigration crackdown has not solely rattled immigrant communities however sparked large protests, quite a few courtroom challenges and broader issues of a constitutional disaster.
An NPR/PBS Information/Marist ballot launched this week discovered that simply 44% of Individuals approve of how Trump is dealing with immigration to date. However the partisan variations are stark: 87% of Republicans approve of his strategy, in comparison with simply 11% of Democrats.
