Photo by antonychammond/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Yesterday the federal government agreed to pay $1.95 million to the family of Francisco Castañeda, a man who died more than three years ago from penile cancer that went untreated while he was in immigrant detention, first in San Diego and later in San Pedro.
It’s a case that had far-reaching repercussions. The federal government has already acknowledged negligence in the case of Castañeda, who was 36 when he died in February 2008. His case and his Congressional testimony – along with several other lawsuits and media reports of detainee deaths, overcrowding and oversight problems – helped prompt the federal government to recommend an overhaul of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention system.
There is still criticism of shortcomings in the system, much of which depends on outside contractors, but Castañeda’s story had an impact. He testified before the House immigration subcommittee in October 2007, four months before he died. Here are some excerpts:
I came to the United States from El Salvador with my mother and siblings when I was ten years old to escape from the civil war. My family moved to Los Angeles where I went to school and began working at the age of 17. My mother died of cancer when I was pretty young, before she was able to get us all legal immigration status. After my mom died, I looked to my community for support, and found myself wrapped up in drugs instead, which, today, I deeply regret. I worked, doing construction, up until I went to prison on a drug charge, where I spent just four months before I was transferred to ICE detention.
When I entered ICE custody at the San Diego Correctional Facility in March 2006, I immediately told them I had a very painful lesion on my penis.
