As ICE Detention Expands, Deaths Reach a 22-Year High

When Parady La, a Cambodian American father and long-time Philadelphia resident, died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody earlier this year just three days after he was arrested, the agency released scant details about what happened. La, 46, was “found distressed and stuporous with ongoing vomiting and abnormal vital signs” at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, according to the account ICE gave in a detainee death report. The next line in the report says only: “Later that day, medical staff responded to a medical emergency and found Mr. LA unresponsive and pulseless.”He was then brought to a Philadelphia hospital, where ICE said he “remained unconscious with evidence of anoxic brain injury and multi-organ failure” and was ultimately pronounced dead. More than seven months later, his family still doesn’t understand what happened in his final hours, or why no one was there to help him sooner. ICE has provided no further information about the “emergency” La suffered or what medical attention—if any—he received following his health troubles earlier in the day.“There's obviously a lot missing, a lot we don't know, and the uncertainty of it all is really hard,...