Monthly Archives: August 2025

Reason: Woman Who Died of Heart Disease in ICE Custody Reportedly Told Son She Wasn’t Allowed to See Doctor for Chest Pains

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Questions about the death of Marie Blaise at a South Florida ICE detention center have lingered since she collapsed in April.

A woman who died of a heart attack in a federal immigration detention facility in South Florida told her son over the phone on the day she died that staff refused to let her see a physician for chest pains, her son told a county investigator.

Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old Haitian national, died on April 25 at the Broward Transitional Center (BTC)—a privately run facility in Pompano Beach, Florida, that contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A medical examiner’s report obtained by Reason through a public records request concluded that she died of natural causes from cardiovascular disease.

An investigator for the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office interviewed Blaise’s son, Kervens Blaise, who said his mother reported being denied medical care.

“I asked Kervens when he last spoke with his mother and said on Friday, 4/25/25 at 2:54 pm (California time),” the investigator wrote in the report. “At that time, did his mother complained of any health issues and he states she complained of having chest pains and abdominal cramps, and when she asked the detention staff to see a physician, they refused her. Kervens states his mother has been experiencing the chest pains for about a month now.”

Blaise also reportedly told several other detainees that she wasn’t feeling well that day.

Blaise was first detained by ICE on February 14 and was transferred to several different ICE detention centers before being sent to BTC in early April.

An official ICE narrative of Blaise’s medical history during her detention states that she had a history of high blood pressure and kidney disease, and that she repeatedly refused to take prescribed medication. According to the ICE report, Blaise saw medical providers three times between her arrival at BTC on April 5 and her death on April 25.

However, BTC detainees who witnessed Blaise collapse said there was also a slow staff response. 

In a report on inhumane conditions at South Florida ICE detention centers recently published by several human rights and legal aid groups, a former BTC detainee identified only as “Rosa” told researchers that she heard a scream from a nearby cell and saw Blaise kneeling on the ground.

“We started yelling for help, but the guards ignored us,” Rosa told the report authors. “Finally, one officer approached slowly, looked at her without intervening, and then walked away. After that, it took eight minutes for the medical provider to arrive, and then another 15 or 20 before the rescue team came. By then, she was not moving.”

Lawyers and detainees have repeatedly alleged medical neglect by staff at ICE facilities in South Florida, including BTC, the Krome Detention Center, and the Federal Detention Center Miami. 

Harpinder Chauhan, a British entrepreneur who was detained by ICE this spring and eventually deported, told the report’s researchers that BTC staff regularly refused to give him his insulin. 

Chauhan eventually collapsed while standing in the dinner line at BTC, leading to him being hospitalized for three days. Chauhan’s son said that hospital and ICE staff would not give him any information on his father’s condition, and he eventually learned his father had been registered under a false name.

A former detainee, whose lawyer requested that he only be identified as “A.S.,” tells Reason he spent four days in an overcrowded holding cell with 50 to 60 other people at the Krome Detention Center.

“There was a dude, he passed out. He was crying for his medicine for like two or three days,” A.S. says. “They didn’t give him his medicine until he finally passed out, right before they were gonna put him on the plane.”

Another man detained at Krome told the report’s authors that the only way he could get guards to believe he was suffering from an excruciating hernia was to throw himself on the floor. Prison staff eventually wheeled him to the medical team, where the doctor on duty told him he “likely just had gas” and offered him “a Pepto-Bismol and two Tylenols.” The detainee refused to leave until the doctor eventually agreed to send him to a hospital, where he received a CAT scan that found he had a strangulated abdominal wall hernia. “The doctor [at the hospital] told me that if I had not come in then, my intestines would have likely ruptured,” the man said.

Blaise’s death led to condemnations and calls for investigations from Florida Democrats, such as Rep. Frederica Wilson (D–Miami Gardens).

“Marie is just an example of what is going to continue to happen,” Wilson said after touring BTC in May. “This is something we’re going to continue to see. It’s going to get more crowded. It’s going to continue to have more deaths. It’s going to continue to have more children without their parents.”

https://reason.com/2025/07/30/woman-who-died-of-heart-disease-in-ice-custody-reportedly-told-son-she-wasnt-allowed-to-see-doctor-for-chest-pains

Inquisitr:Disabled Man Detained by ICE Allegedly Locked Up in Isolation Without Water and Food—And The Reason is Heartbreaking

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Rodney Taylor is a Liberian-born who was detained by ICE as part of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. He was at Georgia‘s Stewart immigration detention center, where he recently spent three days in a “restrictive housing unit,” or so termed by CoerCivic. However, you would be surprised to know why he ended up there. It is because of a very simple complaint.

According to The Guardian, Rodney refused to enter his cell because it was flooded with above an inch of water due to a leak. It is important to note, he didn’t just complain needlessly. The Liberian-born man had battery-powered microprocessor-controlled prosthetic legs, which could have been damaged if they got wet.

“They don’t see you as an individual, but as someone being deported,” Taylor lamented, taking a jab at the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies. His incident shows how ill-prepared the President and his minions are. Even his fiancée, Mildred Pierre, commented on how the administration’s action made his mental health worse during the last six months, calling it “receiving blow after blow.”

Not only the flood incident on April 25, but he has continued to face various incidents over his stay at the detention center, which included the screws of his prosthetic legs coming out. This made him fall several times and caused injury to his hand.

Although he was sent to a clinic, he couldn’t fit new legs as those were delivered without a charger for the battery. His fiancé, Pierre, bought a charger for those. However, at that time, they were asked to wait two months for the clinic appointment, as they were not adept with Taylor’s model of prosthetics.

Pierre, concerned for her fiancé, spent months “trying to figure out – who do I call? who’s going to listen?”

“I am afraid for Rodent,” she wrote to Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff’s office on Saturday, following the flooding incident. However, ultimately, nothing changed, as the guards at the detention center handcuffed him and placed him in solitary confinement. On Tuesday, Stewart’s assistant warden released him.

However, when he was locked up, he was denied any water to drink and was not allowed to charge the battery in his prosthetic legs. The representative for CoerCivic is now saying that Rodney “is being regularly monitored by facility medical staff, with all known medical issues are being addressed, and our staff continuing to accommodate his needs.”

He also denied that the detention center had any solitary confinement, saying it “does not exist.” 

Disabled Man Detained by ICE Allegedly Locked Up in Isolation Without Water and Food—And The Reason is Heartbreaking
Rodney Taylor, a Liberian-born man, became the victim of the immigration crackdown. However, when he complained about flooding in his cell, which could have potentially damaged his prosthetic legs, things turned really harsh for him. He has since criticized the Trump administration’s policy.

Style on Main: ICE Arrested a 6-Year-Old With Leukemia at Immigration Court. Now the Family Is Suing

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Children are supposed to enjoy their formative years through play and conversation with their families and communities, growing up happy and successful in life. However, some of them experience tragic realities at a very young age… a world full of problems and negativity. Kids who are separated due to immigration issues currently face this harsh and confusing reality. To be placed in a cold room full of adults who keep interrogating them can be stressful. What did they do to be there? Are they supposed to be in such a place?

The family thought they were safe. And they even did everything right. Followed every rule, attended every hearing, and filled out papers by memory. Yet, as the mother walked out of the immigration courthouse with her two children, a 6-year-old boy and his 9-year-old sister, the officers (not in uniform) were there, waiting by the door. No warning, no chance to say goodbye, the family was just arrested there on the courthouse steps. They’d been locked up somewhere without any warrant, plus their protection case had been denied. It was a double whammy for the family, and that was just the beginning.

The arrest was just the start. The worst part? The little 6-year-old boy wasn’t just any child, he was fighting a severe form of leukemia, which would be treatable if medicine and treatments were given regularly. But since they were locked in detention, he couldn’t do anything. His treatment eventually stopped, with fewer and fewer chances of beating cancer. According to their mother, his 9-year-old sister then watched as her younger brother got sicker, from crying herself to sleep every night because of extreme stress to sometimes keeping herself awake.

This story isn’t just an isolated case. Imagine babies learning to grow up in cages and toddlers who’ve never even played in real playgrounds. Right now, U.S. immigration centers are holding thousands of children. Some are barely out of diapers…like a 3-year-old kid who spent almost two years in a detention center in Pennsylvania, taking her first steps and learning her first words behind bars instead of in her mother’s arms. These things are now part of those children’s core memories and have left deep scars; they then develop depression and PTSD as they grow older. This pattern questions the humanity of these practices and their impact on young minds.

Behind locked doors is a different kind of tragedy. Families are crowded into dirty rooms like animals in cages, without enough food, or sometimes, a spoiled or cold one. And with the bathrooms smelling bad, the kids would rather hold their pee for hours than use them. No one cares if anyone gets sick. No medicines or even doctors to be found near them. These little ones suffer together, crying constantly, feeling the pain in their bodies as they stay in a strange place. It’s as if their childhood dies a little more each day.

After their release, the mother decided to file a federal lawsuit, saying that the officials violated her family’s constitutional rights by ignoring her son’s need to treat his life-threatening cancer and even detaining them even though they followed all legal immigration requirements. Her lawyers say that the case will show everyone a worrying pattern, that even families who abide by the law can be arrested without any due process. Plus, putting a child’s life at risk and scarring their siblings. Advocates deemed this necessary, despite the fact that the mother speaking out isn’t really well-known, just a simple immigrant trying to pass through their asylum case. They hope that the lawsuit will teach the defendants responsibility and accountability.

After the arrest, and without any notice, the authorities loaded the family onto a transport and drove them from Los Angeles all the way to a remote Texas detention facility, about 1,400 miles away from their so-called home. This destroyed the routines the sick boy relied on. His cancer doctors in California, friends, and family members who might help them were already far, far away from them. While immigration officers claimed that the transfer was necessary for “operational reasons,” it doesn’t hide the fact that the move was deliberately cruel, ripping away the family’s sense of a normal life.

Data shows that 9 out of 10 detained children are locked away longer than federal law allows, with an average of 43 days behind bars. For kids, that feels like an eternity. And even once the gates opened for them, it didn’t erase the scars that were made. Children like the boy and his sister now carry invisible wounds that may never fully heal and will be a part of their lives as adults. Both of them now struggle with how life made them and probably have nightmares during their sleep now and then. Doctors say that trauma can last and shape a person’s life forever.

When the news picked up the family’s story, the public exploded all over social media like a landmine. Protesters gathered outside, and politicians demanded answers. The family was suddenly released within days of the story going viral. No court order, no legal victory, just the public pressure that the immigration office couldn’t ignore. This story proved to be a pivotal point for society, that when people speak up, even the most powerful groups will listen. It wasn’t the legal system that released the family; it was the voice of common people who refused to stay silent.

The case could change how a part of the system operates, including new rules protecting sick children in detention and changes to broken immigration court procedures. Even mental health researchers are demanding immediate policy changes, as there’s no safe way to lock up children. This story may well inspire the agencies to make broader efforts to end or drastically limit family detention policies, pushing for more humane alternatives for countless children and families as they scour through America’s complicated immigration system. Hopes are high for everyone that a new path will be forged through humanity and justice.

ICE Arrested a 6-Year-Old With Leukemia at Immigration Court. Now the Family Is Suing
YouTube – Nigerian Center Children are supposed to enjoy their formative years through play and conversation with their families and communities, growing up happy and successful in life. However, some of them experience tragic realities
ICE Arrested a 6-Year-Old With Leukemia at Immigration Court. Now the Family Is Suing

Raw Story: Trump may have accidentally ‘admitted knowledge of a grotesque crime’: legal expert

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A legal expert was taken aback Thursday night after watching President Donald Trump admit he knew of a “grotesque crime” when he talked about his falling out with Jeffrey Epstein.

Ryan Goodman, founding co-editor-in-chief of the legal and policy website Just Security, joined Erin Burnett on CNN’s “OutFront” to weigh in on Trump’s shocking remarks regarding his relationship with Epstein, who died in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking allegations.

Burnett noted the White House has offered multiple explanations about the falling out, including over a real estate deal. Trump, however, has instead said their friendship blew up because Epstein hired his spa workers — a claim that, she said, “doesn’t add up, because the hiring-away was two years before Trump was continuing to say wonderful things about Epstein—and seven years before he kicked him out of the club.

“Now they’re saying, and Trump has used this word before, that Epstein was a ‘creep,’ and that the White House says, quote, ‘Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees.’ I mean, does any of this add up legally?

Goodman was floored by the remarks.

“So I think they’ve gotten themselves in more trouble by these references, that the reason for it was that he was a creep or that he was a creep to the —

“It’s hard to say he’s a creep if you said you didn’t know what he was doing,” Burnett interjected.

“Exactly,” replied Goodman. “So if he kicked him out because of sexual predation toward the employees, then it means he had knowledge.”

Goodman said Trump’s timeline “doesn’t make sense.” A Trump Organization attorney has said Epstein was booted from Mar-a-Lago in 2007 due to an arrest a year earlier in Florida. Now, the White House is claiming he took that action over what he knew.

“A year after the arrest for pedophilia. Seven years after Virginia Giuffre is hired—is stolen—seven years after that?” asked Burnett.

“Seven years after that. So it’s not a good look for them, at the least. And that’s about, in some sense, moral culpability, not legal culpability. There would have to be more for that. But it does seem as though he’s admitting to knowledge of a grotesque crime against minors. That’s the problem.”

When Burnett asked whether any recourse is possible for Trump over what he knew at the time, Goodman poured cold water on the idea.

“If it’s just knowledge, there’s only one situation in which there would actually be legal obligations. And that’s if somebody is a mandatory reporter. But to be a mandatory reporter, they’d have to be like a schoolteacher or a medical doctor,” he said.

“Not a rich friend?” Burnett clarified.

“No, not just a friend or anything like that. And that would also be under state law. And there would probably also be a statute of limitations problem for that particular offense. But otherwise, that would chalk up to moral culpability.”

Trump may have accidentally ‘admitted knowledge of a grotesque crime’: legal expert

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-epstein-2673797390