Bush administration needs to understand the terms and impose them rightly

At the time, when Bush was preparing to express his deep concerns over human rights record in China, a Chinese immigrant Hiu Lui Ng was dying in the custody of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The 33-year old Mr. Ng had been repeatedly complaining of an excruciating back pain for several months. But, his complains were not respected and officials accused him of faking back pain. Finally, when a judge ordered that Mr. Ng should be brought to the hospital, it was too late. It was found that he had a fractured spine, cancer all over his body and sadly, very little time to live. Five days later, he died leaving behind his wife and two young sons. Although Bush is scolding the Chinese government for its human rights abuses, the fact is that he himself is guilty of the same.

In recent years, millions of immigrants, authorized as well unauthorized, have arrived in the US in order to exercise their unalienable rights to ‘live, liberty and pursuit of happiness’. But what many of these immigrants have got is a society that fails to be recognized from its founding ideals. If for instance, a US citizen dies in a Chinese prison due to medical neglect than it would become an international incident. But nothing that important is the death of Mr. Ng as it is just like a day to day business for the Bush administration. Mr. Ng is not any special and lone entry to this category, but there had been dozens of immigrants who have died due to lack of proper medical care in recent years under the ICE’s sprawling detention system.

In a case very similar to this, a Salvadoran migrant Francisco Castaneda spent almost a year in detention without any treatment for a very painful penile lesion. Finally, when he was allowed to go to a hospital, he had to have his penis removed and this resulted in his death due to cancer that had spread all over his body. The sort of treatment that Castaneda met with was described as ‘beyond cruel and unusual’ by a federal judge. The double standard maintained by Bush is relevant from the fact that although Bush is expressing his firm oppositions towards the detention of dissidents in China, his administration is ruthlessly imprisoning migrant children in family detention centres like the Don Hutto Residential Facility.