PROVIDENCE, R.I. (CN) - A civil immigration detainee died after receiving inadequate medical care in immigration jails, where he was subjected to "torture, brutality, and physical abuse," his family claims in Federal Court. His wife, a U.S. citizen, says the late Hiu Lui Ng, a computer technician who ran his own business, should not have been detained at all.
The widow sued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Central Falls Detention Facility Corp., AVCORR Management, the Franklin County, Vt., Sheriff's Office and a long list of individuals, including doctors.
The late Hiu Lui Ng aka Jason Ng was a certified Microsoft systems engineer. His widow says he entered the USA legally in 1992 when he was 17, and lived peacefully and productively in New York for more than 15 years, where he started and owned his own computer consulting company, J&M Computer Consulting. He married Lin Li Qu, a legal permanent resident, since naturalized, on Feb. 9, 2001, and they have two U.S. citizen children. They owned their own home and kept up on the mortgage. He had never been convicted of a crime or even charged with one.
Mrs. Ng says her husband was denied political asylum in 1995, but never was notified of it or served with Notice to Show Cause why he should not be deported. The INS ordered him to appear at a hearing in 2000, but sent the notice to the wrong address - a place where he never had lived, she says. He was ordered deported in absentia, one week before he married her. She filed an immigrant petition on his behalf that April, and resubmitted it 5 years later because INS/ICE had let it languish without action. The Ngs' attorney filed a motion to reopen his deportation proceedings on July 16, 2007, and when the Ngs showed up in immigration court three days later, their I-130 petition was approved, but nonetheless, immigration officers arrested Mr. Ng "on the spot" and sent him off to a string of contract immigration prisons, where he contracted serious illnesses, was denied medical care, placed in solitary confinement, accused of "faking" and "lying" about his excruciating pain, which turned out to be liver cancer, and subjected him to "cruel, inhumane, malicious and sadistic behavior on the part of ICE officials. These actions represented calculated harassment unrelated to any legitimate or legal purpose."
She claims that staff members at the defendant Wyatt Detention Facility abused him so badly they fractured his spine.
The Ng family demands punitive damages for conspiracy, assault and battery, fraudulent misrepresentation and concealment, negligence, unlawful detention, due process violations, brutality, excessive force, denial of access to counsel, unconstitutional denial of medical care, and other constitutional violations. They are represented by John McConnell Jr.
Read the Top 8
Sign up for the Top 8, a roundup of the day's top stories delivered directly to your inbox Monday through Friday.
Additional Reads
-
Migrants sue Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over Martha’s Vineyard stunt September 20, 2022 -
