More than a month after a man died at an immigrant detention center in Tacoma, federal officials released a report, as required by Congress. The report lacked one key detail: a cause of death.
That’s what many have been asking for after 61-year-old Charles Leo Daniel, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, died March 7 at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, a large privately run facility in Tacoma holding immigrants facing deportation proceedings.
The missing information was disapprovingly noted by ICE critics. Maru Mora Villalpando, an activist who participated in a protest encampment outside the detention center’s gates following Daniel’s death, questioned the purpose of the report. “They still have not told us what happened, why he died,” she said.
Daniel’s death drew attention not only from activists but also members of Congress, especially after revelations that Daniel was held in solitary confinement at the detention center for almost four years. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed the 61-year-old’s placement in “administrative segregation” in its report, pointing out he had asked to be isolated.
Daniel spent more than nine additional years in solitary while serving time for second-degree murder in Washington prisons before being released to ICE in the spring of 2020.
Many studies and reports have shown solitary causes and exacerbates mental health problems and increases the risk of suicide.
ICE’s three-page report says Daniel denied suicidal ideations several times when questioned by medical professionals at the detention center — including on the morning he died, when “he presented as smiling, pleasant and non-distressed.”
A half-hour later, at 10:34 a.m., a staffer announced “man down” by radio, according to the report. Arriving health officers found Daniel lying on his back in his cell, unresponsive, not breathing and without a pulse.
They administered chest compressions and called for emergency medical technicians, who continued to try to resuscitate Daniel. Unsuccessful, they stopped at 11:35 a.m.
ICE’s report does not say if staffers or first responders saw signs of self-harm or sudden medical emergencies like a heart attack or stroke.
The report did chronicle an array of medical and psychological issues Daniel suffered from. In exams a couple of days after Daniel got to the detention center, health care providers found Daniel had edema, a condition that caused swelling in his leg as well as elevated blood pressure and hypertension.
Daniel also had auditory and visual hallucinations, believed people were “putting spirits on him” and used marijuana, cocaine and alcohol, according to the report, though how and where he did so given his many years in prison is unclear.
As time went on, he developed other conditions, including a mass in his thyroid and a lesion in his neck.
He took some medications but repeatedly refused others, including for hypertension and delusions, according to ICE.
Whether any of those conditions led to Daniel’s death is, at this point, unknown to the public and, conceivably, to ICE.
ICE did not immediately respond when asked if the agency would be investigating Daniel’s death further or issuing any other reports.
The Pierce County medical examiner is supposed to determine a cause of death but has not yet. A staffer with that office said investigations can sometimes take months, depending on what tests need to be done, but could not share details about Daniel’s case with people who are not family members.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office can sometimes pinpoint a cause of death in a day but may also take several months, according to James Apa, a spokesperson for Public Health — Seattle and King County.
Phil Neff, research coordinator with the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights, said if ICE doesn’t know why Daniel died, it should say so in the interest of transparency.
The UW center’s director, Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, added that the lack of information left her “disappointed but not shocked.”
Some ICE death reports, which Congress requires be made public within 90 days of a detainee’s passing, cite a cause of death. The agency’s report on the 2018 death of Mergensana Amar in the Tacoma detention center, for instance, notes the Russian asylum-seeker died as a result of hanging, as had already been documented by the state Department of Health.
But Godoy said she has seen other ICE reports that do not say why detainees died.
Even ICE reports that do, she said, can lack vital information since they don’t delve into whether the conditions in which detainees are held may have contributed to their deaths. In Daniel’s case, a thorough report would also have to look at the conditions he faced while in state prisons, Godoy said.
Godoy, like others, including members of Congress, has called for an independent investigation.