During the 10 days after Jimenez Rosa was detained, the family would be thrust into a bureaucratic maze as the 42-year-old mother was shuttled between detention facilities — including one for men only — from Massachusetts to Maine. She was denied proper health care for her diabetes, asthma and other serious health issues, which led to two hospitalizations, her lawyer said.
All the while, her husband — a former Department of Homeland Security employee who grew up in Boston — struggled to locate her and secure her release through court intervention.
…
When Rosa asked about his wife’s medical care, the agent cited HIPAA laws as a barrier to knowing her health issues. Taken aback, Rosa pointed out that doctors can share medical information with law enforcement when a patient is in custody, which is specifically outlined in HIPAA.
“He said a very disgusting joke after that,” Rosa recalled.
“He said, ‘We’ll notify next of kin if she dies.’ And at that moment, I knew that I was no longer dealing with humans.”
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Pomerleau and her family would later discover she had been hospitalized a second time while in custody, her blood pressure at 198. Jimenez Rosa was handcuffed to the bed and this time, told she couldn’t make any calls.
Her husband made this move up front, and it’s probably the best you can do:
“I was just like, ‘Girls, we might never see your mother again in this country,’” Marcel Rosa, 38, said on Friday.
“I looked over to the officer and said, ‘Am I telling the truth?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that could be possible.’ I told my kids right in front of the officer that she’s being arrested, and the girls just started crying, hugging her,” he said.
“I know most parents would not have told that to their kids, but there was no way I was going to allow those officers to think they’re just going to rip my wife away from my family, thinking it’s going to be ‘business as usual.’”
That said, ICE managers are going to give credit to the ICE workers in this story. It is what they want.
The reason they want this is: A) around 40% of the country is excited by this “revenge” against immigrants and B) those that find it to be deeply wrong aren’t going to protest en masse for 60+ consecutive days (including me — I go to the larger things, but I’m obviously not doing this every day) like they would in a country in which dictatorships were real, like Korea.
Neither of these things are going to change. I’m tempted to put a weasel word in there like “likely,” but I don’t say things like “I’m likely not going to find $100 on the street today,” so I shouldn’t.