IHSC Leaders’ ICE Death Emails
It is a clone of this request.
| Tracking # |
2023-ICFO-25792 |
| Submitted | May 11, 2023 |
| Due | June 9, 2023 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Andrew Free
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:
Part A. Smith-Rivera Deaths In ICE Custody Emails Meta-Data (or, alternatively, the Emails themselves)
A metadata list of all emails sent or received by Dr. Stewart D Smith or Dr. Ada Rivera of ICE Health Services Corps (IHSC) since May 12, 2017, containing one or more of the following words or phrases:
(1) “Death in custody”; (2) “In-Custody Death”; (3) “Detainee Death”; (4) “Inmate Death”; (5) “prisoner death” or (6) “ICE Directive 11003.5”.
Please metadata information for provide date sent, sender, attachments, file size, recipients (CC & BCC),
If the agency’s position is that the existing meta-data necessary to provide this list is not a pre-existing agency record, we will instead accept each and every non-duplicative responsive email.
Part B. IHSC Leaders’ Names of the 58 Dead on His Watch Meta-Data (or, alternatively, the Emails themselves)
All emails sent or received by Stewart D Smith or Ada Rivera since May 12, 2017, referencing any of the following 58 individuals who have passed away in or shortly after being released from ICE custody since May 15, 2017, while Dr Smith and Dr Rivera have been responsible for ensuring the safety of medical care provided to folks locked inside:
(1) Jeancarlo Alfonso Jimenez-Joseph Panama 4/20/1990 5/15/2017 27 "Phoebe Sumter Medical Center
Americus, Georgia" Georgia
(2) Atulkumar Babubhai Patel India 12/31/1958 5/16/2017 58 "Grady Memorial Hospital
Atlanta, Georgia" Georgia
(3) Vicente Caceres-Maradiaga Honduras 10/27/1970 5/31/2017 46 "Adelanto Detention Facility
Adelanto, California" California
(4) Carlos Mejia-Bonilla El Salvador 6/10/2017 44 "Jersey City Medical Center
Jersey City, New Jersey" New Jersey
(5) Montesino-Cabrera Cuba 9/1/2017 37 "Larkin Community Hospital
Miami, Florida" Florida
(6) Felipe Almazan-Ruiz Mexico 9/17/2017 51 "Conroe Regional Medical Center
Conroe, Texas" Texas
(7) Kamyar Samimi Iran 12/2/2017 64 "University of Colorado Medical Center
Aurora, Colorado" Colorado
(8) Castro-Garrido Cuba 1/30/2018 33 "Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida" Georgia / Florida
(9) Luis Ramirez-Marcano Cuba 2/19/2018 59 "Kendall Regional Medical Center
Miami, Florida" Florida
(10) Gourgen Mirimanian Armenia 3/16/1964 4/10/2018 54 "Texas Health Huguley Hospital
Burleson, Texas" Texas
(11) Ronald Cruz (AKA Ronal Romero) Honduras 1/24/1979 5/16/2018 39 "Valley Baptist Medical Center
Harlingen, Texas" Texas
(12) Roxana Hernandez Honduras 2/18/1985 5/25/2018 33 Milan, New Mexico New Mexico
(13) Zeresenay Ermias Testfatsion Eritrea 6/6/2018 34 "Cairo International Airport
Cairo, Egypt" Egypt
(14) Huy Chi Tran Vietnam 8/7/1970 6/12/2018 47 "Banner Casa Grande Medical Center
Casa Grande, Arizona" Arizona
(15) Efrain De La Rosa Mexico 9/17/1977 7/10/2018 40 "Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center
Cuthbert, Georgia" Georgia
(16) Ramirez-Arreola Mexico 5/30/1956 7/25/2018 62 "Alvarado Hospital
La Mesa, California" California
(17) Wilfredo Padron Cuba 9/3/1960 11/1/2018 58 "Lower Keys Medical Center
Key West, Florida" Florida
(18) Mergensana Amar Russia 10/23/1978 11/15/2018 40 "Saint Joseph's Medical Center
Tacoma, Washington" Washington
(19) Guerman Volkov Russia 2/16/1962 11/30/2018 56 "University of Florida Health Jacksonville Medical Center
Jacksonville, Florida" Florida
(20) Abel Reyes-Clemente Mexico 8/5/1964 4/3/2019 54 Florence, Arizona Arizona
(21) Simratpal Singh India 1/29/1998 5/3/2019 21 "La Paz County Jail
Parker, Arizona" Arizona
(22) Johana Medina Leon El Salvador 6/1/2019 25 "Del Sol Medical Center
El Paso, Texas" Texas
(23) Yimi Alexis Balderramos-Torres Honduras 5/2/1989 6/30/2019 30 "Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital
Humble, Texas" Texas
(24) Pedro Arriago-Santoya Mexico 7/15/1975 7/24/2019 44 "Piedmont Midtown Medical Center
Columbus, Georgia" Georgia
(25) Roberto Rodriguez-Espinoza Mexico 1/3/1982 9/10/2019 37 "Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital
Winfield, Illinois" Illinois
(26) Nebane Abienwi Cameroon 10/28/1981 10/1/2019 37 "Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center
Chula Vista, California" California
(27) Roylan Hernandez-Diaz Cuba 9/25/1976 10/15/2019 43 "Richwood Correctional Center
Richwood, Louisiana" Louisiana
(28) Anthony Oluseye Akinyemi Nigeria 3/6/1963 12/21/2019 56 "Worcester County Jail
Snow Hill, Maryland" Maryland
(29) Samuelino Pitchout Mavinga Angola 6/29/1979 12/29/2019 40 "Presbyterian Hospital
Albuquerque, New Mexico" New Mexico
(30) Ben James Owen United Kingdom 11/16/1980 1/25/2020 39 "Baker County Detention Center
Macclenny, Florida" Florida
(31) Alberto Hernandez-Fundora Cuba 8/5/1956 1/27/2020 63 "Larkin Community Hospital
Miami, Florida" Florida
(32) David Hernandez Colula Mexico 1/23/1986 2/20/2020 34 "Mercy Health-St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital
Youngstown, Ohio" Ohio
(33) Maria Celeste Ochoa Yoc de Ramirez Guatemala 8/10/1997 3/8/2020 22 "Texas Health Downtown Forth Worth hospital
Fort Worth, Texas" Texas
(34) Orlan Ariel Carcamo-Navarro Honduras 6/16/1992 3/18/2020 27 "Karnes County Residential Center
Karnes, Texas" Texas
(35) Ramiro Hernandez-Ibarra Mexico 3/11/1978 3/21/2020 42 "Valley Baptist Medical Center
Harlingen, Texas" Texas
(36) Carlos Ernesto Escobar-Mejia El Salvador 5/27/1962 5/6/2020 57 "Paradise Valley Hospital
National City, California" California
(37) Oscar Lopez Acosta Honduras 5/10/2020 42 "Morrow County Correctional Facility
Gilead, Ohio" Ohio
(38) Choung Won Ahn South Korea 6/2/1945 5/17/2020 74 "Mesa Verde Detention Facility
Bakersfield, California" California
(39) Santiago Baten-Oxlaj Guatemala 7/13/1985 5/25/2020 34 "Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital
Columbus, Georgia" Georgia
(40) Onoval Perez-Montufa Mexico 8/31/1968 7/12/2020 51 "Palm Beach County Hospital
Palm Beach, Florida" Florida
(41) Luis Sanchez-Perez Guatemala 9/3/1973 7/15/2020 46 "Ochsner LSU Monroe Medical Center
Monroe, Louisiana" Louisiana
(42) Kuan Hui Lee Taiwan 11/17/1968 8/5/2020 51 "Kendall Regional Medical Center
Miami, Florida" Florida
(43) James Thomas Hill Canada 8/21/1947 8/5/2020 72 "Lynchburg General Hospital in Virginia
Lynchburg, Virginia" Virginia
(44) Jose Guillen-Vega Costa Rica 8/10/1950 8/10/2020 70 "Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital
Columbus, Georgia" Georgia
(45) Fernando Sabonger-Garcia Honduras 2/20/1970 8/28/2020 50 "Conroe Regional Medical Center
Conroe, Texas" Texas
(46) Cipriano Chavez-Alvarez Mexico 6/28/1959 9/21/2020 61 "Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital
Columbus, Georgia" Georgia
(47) Romien Jally Marshall Islands 2/10/1964 9/26/2020 56 "Christus St. Frances Cabrini Hospital
Alexandria, Louisiana" Louisiana
(48) Anthony Jones The Bahamas 3/29/1969 12/17/2020 51 "Adams County Detention Center
Natchez, Mississippi" Mississippi
(49) Felipe Montes Mexico 12/10/1963 1/30/2021 57 "Piedmont Columbus Regional Hospital
Columbus, Georgia" Georgia
(50) Jesse Jermone Dean Jr. The Bahamas 3/21/1962 2/5/2021 58 "Calhoun County Jail
Battle Creek, Michigan" Michigan
(51) Diego Fernando Gallego-Agudelo Colombia 3/15/2021 45 "Valley Baptist Medical Center
Harlingen, Texas" Texas
(52) Elba Maria Centeno Briones Nicaragua 3/23/84 8/3/2021 37 Valley Baptist Medical Center Harlingen, TX Texas
(53) Pablo Sanchez-Gotopo Venezuela 6/3/1981 10/1/2021 40 Merit Health Natchez Medical Center Mississippi
(54) Benjamin Gonzalez-Soto Mexico 11/24/1985 7/8/2022 36 Mountain Vista Medical Center Mesa, AZ Arizona
(55) Kesley Vial Brazil 8/29/98 8/24/2022 23 University of New Mexico Medical Ctr New Mexico
(56) Melvin Calero Nicaragua 9/29/83 10/13/2022 39 University of Colorado Hospital, Aurora, CO Colorado
(57) Cristian Dimitriscu Romania 3/7/2023 California
(58) Salvador Vargas Mexico 4/4/2023 61 Piedmont Regional Columbus Georgia
Expedited Processing Request
Pursuant to 6 CFR 5.5(e), we hereby request expedited processing of this request, and certify under penalty of perjury that the following is true and correct to the best of our knowledge and understanding:
The subject of the records at issue - ICE deaths in custody - has been the subject of substantial and widespread media coverage about which there exist significant questions as to the agency’s conduct. Multiple federal courts have held ICE broke the law by failing to timely respond to requests about in-custody deaths, including the courts in Transgender Law Center v. ICE (NDCal/CA9), Innovation Law Lab v. ICE (DNM), and Owen v. ICE (CD Cal). As the folks in charge of IHSC, Smith and Rivera are the IHSC officials with the most (a) institutional knowledge about deaths in ICE custody born of long-term, mandatory reports made to or by them about deaths in custody; and (b) individual responsibility in his respective roles within the agency for preventing preventable deaths. Archiving these officials’ emails for historians and experts to understand their response to 58 deaths in custody, and making these records available to those opposing expansion of the carceral apparatus by ICE in the present moment are essential to preventing another 58 losses of human life in ICE custody in the years to come.
Pattern and Practice Injunction Advisal
In August 2021, our project wrote ICE’s FOIA leaders a letter calling attention to an extensive pattern and practice of failing to timely acknowledge FOIA requests, process them for determinations within statutory timeframes, and make records promptly available. We received no response. In January 2023, the US District Court for the Central District of California declared ICE has an unlawful pattern and practice of failing to timely respond to FOIA requests, and entered judgment in favor of families from whom ICE withheld records about deaths in custody for years. We know you are unlikely to acknowledge this request, assign it an individualized tracking number, make a timely determination about whether to grant or deny it, and make these records available promptly, and on an expedited basis. You are unlikely to have read this far until this request is attached to a federal lawsuit. But if that is the necessary means to enforce this request, we respectfully advise you that the Court in Owen v. ICE (CD Cal) has already said “It should not take a lawsuit for an agency to comply with FOIA.” If the agency, after having judgment entered against it for FOIA noncompliance in a lawsuit that should never have been necessary in the first place, cannot bring itself into compliance with FOIA’s timelines, we will invite the Court to do so through an injunction.
Thank you in advance for your prompt response,
#DetentionKills Transparency Initiative
Al Otro Lado
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Andrew Free
From: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
05/16/2023Andrew FreeMuckRock News, DEPT MR145700Boston, Massachusetts 02115 RE: ICE FOIA Case Number 2023-ICFO-25792 Dear Requester:This acknowledges receipt of your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), dated 5/11/2023, and to your request for expedited treatment. Your request was received in this office on 5/11/2023. Specifically, you requested emails sent or received by Dr. Stewart D Smith or Dr. Ada Rivera of ICE Health Services Corps (IHSC) since May 12, 2017 (see request).Your request for expedited treatment is hereby denied. Under the DHS FOIA regulations, expedited processing of a FOIA request is warranted if the request involves “circumstances in which the lack of expedited treatment could reasonably be expected to pose an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual,” 6 C.F.R. § 5.5(e)(1)(i), or “an urgency to inform the public about an actual or alleged federal government activity, if made by a person primarily engaged in disseminating information,” 6 C.F.R. § 5.5(e)(l)(ii). Requesters seeking expedited processing must submit a statement explaining in detail the basis for the request, and that statement must be certified by the requester to be true and correct. 6 C.F.R. § 5.5(e)(3). Your request for expedited processing is denied because you do not qualify for either category under 6 C.F.R. § 5.5(e)(1). You failed to demonstrate a particular urgency to inform the public about the government activity involved in the request beyond the public’s right to know about government activity generally. Your letter was conclusory in n Due to the increasing number of FOIA requests received by this office, we may encounter some delay in processing your request. Per Section 5.5(a) of the DHS FOIA regulations, 6 C.F.R. Part 5, ICE processes FOIA requests according to their order of receipt. Although ICE’s goal is to respond within 20 business days of receipt of your request, the FOIA does permit a 10- day extension of this time period. As your request seeks numerous documents that will necessitate a thorough and wide-ranging search, ICE will invoke a 10-day extension for your request, as allowed by Title 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(B). If you care to narrow the scope of your request, please contact our office. We will make every effort to comply with your request in a timely manner. Provisions of the FOIA allow us to recover part of the cost of complying with your request. We shall charge you for records in accordance with the DHS Interim FOIA regulations as they apply to non-commercial requesters. As a non-commercial requester, you will be charged 10 cents per page for duplication; the first 100 pages are free, as are the first two hours of search time, after which you will pay the per quarter-hour rate ($4.00 for clerical personnel, $7.00 for professional personnel, $10.25 for managerial personnel) of the searcher. We will construe the submission of your request as an agreement to pay up to $25.00. You will be contacted before any further fees are accrued.If you deem the decision to deny expedited treatment of your request an adverse determination, you have the right to appeal. Should you wish to do so, you must send your appeal and a copy of this letter, within 90 days of the date of this letter following the procedures outlined in the DHS FOIA regulations at 6 C.F.R. Part 5 § 5.5(e)(2). You may submit your appeal electronically at GILDFOIAAppeals@ice.dhs.gov or via regular mail to: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of the Principal Legal Advisor U.S. Department of Homeland Security 500 12th Street,, S.W., Mail Stop 5900 Washington, D.C. 20536-5900Your envelope and letter should be marked “FOIA Appeal.” Copies of the FOIA and DHS regulations are available at www.dhs.gov/foia.ICE has queried the appropriate program offices within ICE for responsive records. If any responsive records are located, they will be reviewed for determination of releasability. Please be assured that one of the processors in our office will respond to your request as expeditiously as possible. We appreciate your patience as we proceed with your request.If you have any questions, please contact the FOIA office or Fernando Pineiro Jr., FOIA Public Liaison at 500 12th St. SW Stop 5009 Washington, DC 20536-5009 or (866) 633-1182. Additionally, you have a right to seek dispute resolution services from the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) which mediates disputes between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies as a non-exclusive alternative to litigation. If you are requesting access to your own records (which is considered a Privacy Act request), you should know that OGIS does not have the authority to handle requests made under the Privacy Act of 1974. You may contact OGIS as follows: Office of Government Information Services, National Archives and Records Administration, 8601 Adelphi Road-OGIS, College Park, Maryland 20740-6001, e-mail at ogis@nara.gov; telephone at 202-741-5770; toll free at 1-877-684-6448; or facsimile at 202-741-5769.Your request has been assigned tracking number 2023-ICFO-25792. Please use this number in future correspondence. Sincerely,ICE FOIA OfficeImmigration and Customs EnforcementFreedom of Information Act Office500 12th Street, S.W., Stop 5009Washington, D.C. 20536-5009
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v.E.1
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 12, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response. You had assigned it reference number #2023-ICFO-25792.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 12, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response. You had assigned it reference number #2023-ICFO-25792.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 12, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response. You had assigned it reference number #2023-ICFO-25792.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 12, 2023. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response. You had assigned it reference number #2023-ICFO-25792.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
Files
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