Two civil rights groups have urged the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the death of a transgender inmate at a San Pedro immigration detention center on grounds that the 23-year-old with AIDS was denied vital medical treatment.
In a letter sent to the department's Office of Inspector General on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and New York-based Human Rights Watch also called for an inquiry into the apparent transfer to other immigration facilities of more than 20 detainees who saw the events leading up to the death of Victor Arellano on July 20.
The transfers, according to the organizations, occurred less than 24 hours before a Human Rights Watch official went to the San Pedro facility to interview some of the detainees.
Two of the witnesses were moved to an immigration facility in Texas, and the whereabouts of the others are unknown, the organizations said.
"The transfer of those witnesses not only affects their ability to defend themselves by disrupting access to family and legal counsel, but makes it more difficult to interview them for an investigation into Arellano's death," said Megan McLemore, the Human Rights Watch researcher.
She visited the facility on Aug. 22 and was one of the letter's authors.
McLemore said she visited the San Pedro facility to interview two other HIV/AIDS patients and Arellano's cellmates as part of a report on medical care for such patients in detention.
But upon her arrival, she said, she discovered that more than 20 witnesses, all of whom had signed a petition protesting Arellano's treatment, had been transferred.
Arellano's death has sparked an outcry among immigration rights officials and organizations that monitor the health of prisoners in federal and state facilities nationwide.
About 30,000 illegal immigrants are in detention facilities throughout the country.
Two other unrelated deaths of detainees earlier this year triggered an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General into the quality of medical care at federal detention centers, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) confirmed Tuesday.
At the direction of the inspector general, the spokeswoman said, Waxman's office earlier this month approached the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Civil Rights to ask if Arellano's death could be investigated.
The agency has yet to respond.
