Immigration and Customs Enforcement has agreed to begin providing medical care that goes well beyond emergency treatment, as a result of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The suit alleged that ICE was not treating “immigration detainees with constitutionally adequate levels of medical and mental health care.”
Among the many services which ICE will now provide illegal aliens in their custody are heart surgeries, cancer biopsies, treatment for diabetes, dental care, and treatment for mental depression.
On Thursday, Elizabeth Alexander, former Director of the ACLU National Prison Project and lead attorney in the suit said: "For the first time, ICE has committed to providing all necessary health care to immigration detainees beyond just emergency care. For too long, ICE's own policies allowed it to provide detainees with nothing beyond a narrow definition of emergency. This settlement is recognition that it is unconstitutional not to provide people in government custody with all necessary health care."
The legal action was filed in June 2007 by the ACLU and the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties and stated that detainees at the San Diego Correctional Facility were often subjected to long waits for medical treatment and denied medication for chronic illnesses.
The lawsuit cited several cases in which detainees with bipolar disorders and depression went untreated, as well as illegal aliens who never received care for high cholesterol and broken teeth.
No word yet on the estimated cost of this new policy to the taxpayers.
