ICE detention death separates Guatemalan couple as wife is deported before husband dies in Texas custody
A Guatemalan man has become the first person to die in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Fort Bliss army base in Texas. His wife of 25 years was deported from the same camp without a chance to see her dying husband.
Francisco Gaspar-Andrés, 48, died on 3 December at a hospital in El Paso, as Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates were ramping up demands that the camp be closed down amid allegations of inhumane conditions there. The DHS has said such allegations are “categorically false”.
ICE suspected the cause of Gaspar-Andrés’s death to be “natural liver and kidney failure”, adding that: “From the moment they were notified of his health crisis, ICE medical staff ensured he had constant, high-quality care.”
The agency issued a press release detailing a litany of escalating medical complaints over his 10 weeks in Texas and said he received care at the camp in November for “a variety of ailments” including flu-like symptoms, bleeding gums, fever, jaundice and hypertension.
“On November 14, an immigration judge ordered Gaspar-Andrés removed to Guatemala,” according to the ICE release.
He was hospitalized on 16 November as his condition worsened. He had an infection and ultimately deteriorated into organ failure, internal bleeding and death.
On 28 November, his wife, now widow, Lucía Pedro Juan, was put on a deportation flight to Guatemala, after also being held at the ICE tent facility known as Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss, according to an account she gave to the El Paso Times.
The Trump administration ordered Camp East Montana constructed earlier this year to hold migrants on the army base.
Pedro Juan was traced by the El Paso Times to the town of Santa Eulalia in Guatemala’s western highlands, where she told journalists visiting her that she and her husband had been taken separately to Fort Bliss after being arrested during a traffic stop in south Florida in September, where they had lived for years and have five children.
“I never saw him again, I never spoke to him or heard his voice again. It’s something terrible they did to us,” she tearfully told the Texas outlet in an in-depth interview.
Pedro Juan also said that she had eventually agreed to be deported to Guatemala because she feared she might die amid the US camp’s harsh conditions.
ICE and DHS did not respond to queries and requests for comment from the Guardian about Pedro Juan.
