Tag Archives: Marie Ange Blaise

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

USA Today: Immigrants forced to eat ‘like a dog’ in detention centers

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Forced to eat the day’s only meal “like a dog,” with their hands shackled behind their back. Detained for days with nothing but shoes for a pillow and no other bedding ‒ just cold, concrete floors and constant fluorescent lighting. Medical care that denied a man with diabetes insulin for a week and may have contributed to at least one death.  

A Human Rights Watch report says three Miami immigrant detention facilities have subjected people to conditions so inhumane they have become, at times, life-threatening. Many ICE detention facilities are becoming overcrowded and conditions are deteriorating, according to the July 21 report.

The report, which drew from the testimonials of 17 detainees, examined conditions since President Donald Trump took office in January. Investigators say conditions at the Krome North Processing Center, Federal Detention Center and Broward Transitional Center flout international law on holding people in immigrant detention and federal government standards.

The conditions for people held in the detention facilities “are not the way that any legitimate, functioning government should treat people within its custody,” report author and editor Alison Leal Parker, deputy director of the Human Rights Watch’s US Program, said.

While the facilities have had issues predating this administration, Parker said Trump administration officials have been unwilling to uphold standards to properly treat immigrant detainees. The conditions indicate the system is “overwhelmed, overcrowded and chaotic,” she said.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said claims of subprime conditions at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers are “FALSE.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” McLaughlin said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE. ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”

Southern, Republican-led states have emerged as key partners in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Florida stood up a tent city called “Alligator Alcatraz.” Georgia is expanding its largest ICE detention center. And Louisiana is hosting the most dedicated ICE facilities outside Texas.

Time at all three facilities

Entrepreneur Harpinder Singh Chauhan, 56, spent time at all three facilities during nearly four months as a detainee, beginning in February. 

The British national, who first entered the country on an E-2 investor visa in 2016, opened small businesses in Florida. One of them failed ‒ a franchise of Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, which also bankrupted many other franchisees. He and his wife were seeking permanent residency through a valid EB-5 visa petition when their business collapsed.

While Chauhan was never convicted of crimes, he was ordered to pay restitution to Florida for tax issues, court records show. In February, he was turned over to ICE after a routine probation check-in.

At the Krome facility, he spent days in cold, crowded processing cells without beds or showers. He said he was denied medical care, including insulin for his diabetes and an inhaler for his asthma. He used his shoes as a pillow. 

During a tuberculosis outbreak, he said the facility had no soap. Instead, staff made detainees use shampoo to wash their hands. Detainees jokingly said everyone had “Krome’s disease,” a play on Chrohn’s disease, a chronic gastrointestinal illness, Chauhan recalled.

Detainees were beaten for protesting their treatment, and one man was hogtied, the report said. Officials also used solitary confinement as punishment, according to women who spoke to Human Rights Watch. In June, detainees at Krome signaled “SOS” to news cameras from the yard over conditions.

The report said women were placed at Krome, a privately operated men’s facility, where they were crowded in small holding cells without gender-appropriate care or privacy. USA TODAY reported on similar conditions inside Krome, where one man died ‒ an incident Human Rights Watch suspects may have been linked to medical neglect.

Akima, a private Alaska Native Corporation that operates Krome, didn’t respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment. But in response to a Human Rights Watch letter summarizing findings and questions, the company said it couldn’t comment publicly on the specifics of its “engagement” with the government, according to the report.

‘Like a dog’

Midway through his detention, on April 15, Chauhan was placed inside a crowded Federal Detention Center holding cell awaiting transfer without a meal for the day. Styrofoam food containers sat full for hours on other side of the federal prison’s bars.

In the evening, he and others finally received food. But with their hands shackled at their waist, they were forced to eat by putting their faces to bite into potatoes rolling around, rice and dry chicken, he said.

“You’ve got to kind of prop it up with your knees and then eat out of it like a dog,” Chauhan said. Another 21-year-old detainee interviewed by Human Rights Watch also described being forced to eat like an animal.

The 25 to 30 men forced to eat this way were transferred from the facility several hours later, Chauhan said.

Less than a week later, at Broward, Chauhan collapsed in the heat awaiting dinner and was taken to a hospital, with no information given to his family. He had not had his insulin for nearly a week. A 44-year-old Haitian woman, Marie Ange Blaise, died at the facility in April, following a medical emergency that was not treated urgently, according to Human Rights Watch and advocates.

“We strongly believe her death could have been prevented,” Guerline Jozef, director of the nonprofit Haitian Bridge Alliance told USA TODAY at the time. “We will continue to demand accountability and protection for people in ICE custody.”

GEO Group, which operates Broward, denied the report’s allegations, including questions about Chauhan’s account.

The facility has around-the-clock access to medical care, as well as access to visitations, libraries, translation services and amenities, Christopher Ferreira, a spokesperson for the company, said in a statement. Support services are monitored by ICE, including on-site personnel, and other organizations within DHS.

A ‘dark time’ in US

Chauhan was ordered deported and boarded a flight back to the United Kingdom on June 5. His family, including two adult children, stayed in Florida to close what remains of their businesses.

Now living outside London, Chauhan said he plans to keep paying his Florida debt. Even though his family is ready to leave, he hopes to one day return to America.

“Every nation goes through a dark time,” he said. “I feel this is just a test.”

Immigrants forced to eat ‘like a dog’ in ‘overcrowded and chaotic’ detention centers
A Human Rights Watch report said three Miami detention facilities subject people to inhumane, at times life-threatening, conditions.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/07/24/trump-immigration-detention-conditions-dog/85338970007

Guardian: Migrants at Ice jail in Miami made to kneel to eat ‘like dogs’, report alleges

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Incident in which migrants were shackled with hands tied of one succession of alleged abuses at jails in Florida

Migrants at a Miami immigration jail were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates “like dogs”, according to a report published on Monday into conditions at three overcrowded south Florida facilities.

The incident at the downtown federal detention center is one of a succession of alleged abuses at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (Ice) operated jails in the state since January, chronicled by advocacy groups Human Rights Watch, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and Sanctuary of the South from interviews with detainees.

Dozens of men had been packed into a holding cell for hours, the report said, and denied lunch until about 7pm. They remained shackled with the food on chairs in front of them.

“We had to eat like animals,” one detainee named Pedro said.

Degrading treatment by guards is commonplace in all three jails, the groups say. At the Krome North service processing center in west Miami, female detainees were made to use toilets in full view of men being held there, and were denied access to gender-appropriate care, showers, or adequate food.

The jail was so far beyond capacity, some transferring detainees reported, that they were held for more than 24 hours in a bus in the parking lot. Men and women were confined together, and unshackled only when they needed to use the single toilet, which quickly became clogged.

“The bus became disgusting. It was the type of toilet in which normally people only urinate but because we were on the bus for so long, and we were not permitted to leave it, others defecated in the toilet,” one man said.

“Because of this, the whole bus smelled strongly of feces.”

When the group was finally admitted into the facility, they said, many spent up to 12 days crammed into a frigid intake room they christened la hierela – the ice box – with no bedding or warm clothing, sleeping instead on the cold concrete floor.

There was so little space at Krome, and so many detainees, the report says, that every available room was used to hold new arrivals.

“By the time I left, almost all the visitation rooms were full. A few were so full men couldn’t even sit, all had to stand,” Andrea, a female detainee, said.

At the third facility, the Broward transitional center in Pompano Beach, where a 44-year-old Haitian woman, Marie Ange Blaise, died in April, detainees said they were routinely denied adequate medical or psychological care.

Some suffered delayed treatment for injuries and chronic conditions, and dismissive or hostile responses from staff, the report said.

In one alleged incident in April at the downtown Miami jail, staff turned off a surveillance camera and a “disturbance control team” brutalized detainees who were protesting a lack of medical attention to one of their number who was coughing up blood. One detainee suffered a broken finger.

All three facilities were severely overcrowded, the former detainees said, a contributory factor in Florida’s decision to quickly build the controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” jail in the Everglades intended to eventually hold up to 5,000 undocumented migrants awaiting deportation.

Immigration detention numbers nationally were at an average of 56,400 per day in mid-June, with almost 72% having no criminal history, according to the report.

The daily average during the whole of 2024 was 37,500, HRW said.

The groups say that the documented abuses reflect inhumane conditions inside federal immigration facilities that have worsened significantly since Trump’s January inauguration and subsequent push to ramp up detentions and deportations.

“The anti-immigrant escalation and enforcement tactics under the Trump administration are terrorizing communities and ripping families apart, which is especially cruel in the state of Florida, which thrives because of its immigrant communities,” said Katie Blankenship, immigration attorney and co-founder of Sanctuary of the South.

“The rapid, chaotic, and cruel approach to arresting and locking people up is literally deadly and causing a human rights crisis that will plague this state and the entire country for years to come.”

The Guardian has contacted Ice for comment.

Migrants at Ice jail in Miami made to kneel to eat ‘like dogs’, report alleges
Incident in which migrants were shackled with hands tied of one succession of alleged abuses at jails in Florida

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/21/migrants-miami-ice-jail-abuses