ICE released detainee while he was in a coma, weeks before his death

The first time Melissa Castro saw her husband in the hospital, on Feb. 8, he was in a coma, having suffered a brain hemorrhage a day earlier.

On that day, Jose Luis Ibarra Bucio also was in custody, an immigrant detainee being held at the ICE Processing Center in Adelanto. As lines and tubes connected medical equipment to Ibarra’s head and torso, a shackle connected his foot to the bed.

But when Ibarra died, on March 21 – without ever regaining consciousness – he was a free man. Federal immigration officials had released him.

On Wednesday, Ibarra’s family and supporters said they want answers about his sudden death. They also question whether his release was more about the government looking to avoid the responsibility – and the scrutiny – that comes when someone dies on its watch than the government’s stated rationale, “humanitarian reasons.” In recent years, at least two other detainees have been released by ICE as they were dying.

“For us, it raises the question, did ICE release him because they didn’t want to be accountable?” asked Liz Martinez, of the Freedom for Immigrants advocacy group.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said in an e-mail that Ibarra was released on Feb. 22, or 15 days after he’d collapsed.

Ibarra – a 27-year-old Mexican national who grew up in Long Beach – was picked up by ICE on Jan. 28 after he left California State Prison in Corcoran. He served a seven-month sentence for a felony conviction: fleeing a police officer in his car while driving recklessly. Due to his conviction, he was taken into immigrant civilian detention at Adelanto for possible deportation. ICE officials did not reply to questions about his treatment while in ICE custody or the timing of his release.

Ibarra was 4 when he was brought to the United States, his family said, and he graduated from Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo High School. He worked as a truck driver and had a work permit through the federal program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, or DACA, which offers people brought to the country illegally as children relief from deportation. But that status expired while Ibarra was in prison.

Ibarra and Castro married nearly two years ago. And four days before he collapsed and fell into a coma, he became a father.

“My son will never have the experience of feeling the love and happiness my husband…would have offered him,” said a weeping Castro, 27, of Los Angeles, during a press conference Wednesday at the office of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Rev. Walter Contreras, vice president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said: “We don’t want to blame anybody, but where is the morality in all of this?”

Ibarra’s sister, Lucian Ibarra, said the family wants answers as to what happened. Her brother had no health issues when he was taken into custody in Adelanto, she said.

So Castro was surprised when she was contacted by authorities on Feb. 8 and told her husband was in the hospital due to a “passing out episode.” When she arrived to see him, he was guarded by two officials. After being kept alive on life support and with no hopes of recovery, the family decided to end the medical care on March 20. He died the next day.

A report from the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s office concluded that Ibarra died from ruptured abnormal blood vessels, (a “spontaneous ruptured arteriovenous malformation,”). When he arrived at Loma Linda Medical Center, where he was taken after being released from custody, he was diagnosed with a hemorrhage caused by avascular necrosis, or the death of bone tissue. Ibarra had a medical history of avascular necrosis, according to the report, which also stated that Ibarra did not use illicit drugs, tobacco or alcohol, and “there was no trauma, abuse or neglect.”

Because he was no longer detained by ICE when he died, there will be no investigation or reporting on the part of the government, immigrant-rights advocates said.

“It’s an example of someone falling into serious medical condition while in detention who gets released on his death bed,” Eva Biltran, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a brief phone interview Wednesday.

Martinez, of the Freedom for Immigrants group, pointed to two other instances of detainees being released from ICE detention when it became obvious they would not recover.

In 2017, Saliou Ndiaye of Senegal was dropped by ICE as a detainee as he lay in a hospital bed, kept alive by machines, the Associated Press reported. And in 2016, Teka Gulema, of Ethiopia, died “from complications arising from a preventable and treatable infection” that left him paralyzed, according to a letter from the Freedom for Immigrants group to government officials.  Gulema had been released from custody several weeks before his death.

“We don’t know how many people have died after ICE custody who became ill or their illness was exacerbated while they were in custody,” Martinez said.  Because it didn’t happen on their watch, they don’t have to report it, she said.

The privately-owned and operated Adelanto facility has come under greater scrutiny in recent years, with reports criticizing the center’s medical care, among other things. Last month, the city chose to end its contract with the facility, a move that might make it possible for the nearly 2,000-bed detention center to expand.