This man was killed by the viciousness and incompetence of the federal government. I'd like to say I hope his family sues the shit out of everyone involved, but I know that that only means they'll spend years in protracted legal battles, being drained of every cent they have (as they've already been drained trying to get him help), their grief compounded by yet more frustration, yet more injustice.
This case involves more than just bureaucratic oversight; it's a crime. And the martinets who perpetrated it should be criminally prosecuted.
Oh no. Oh dear God. This is a horrible story, and it sent chills down my spine. As an immigrant myself, I cringe when I read such things, knowing that it could have been me, if I'd lost my green card and gone down to the INS (what they called it before Homeland Security took over) and they said, There is no record of you here--take her away!
As it is, I've come into the country from Canada, for example, and experienced having an immigration officer look at my green card, say "This doesn't look like you" (I am someone who can look different from one photograph to the next, depending on lighting, angle, makeup, and hairstyle--something that used to serve me well, back in the day), and hold my American family and me up for ages before putting the card in a hole-punch and putting a big hole where my face used to be, saying "Get a new one." That, of course, took months of hoop-jumping.
I am so sorry for Mr. Ng's family. How terrifying it must have been for him, being in agony and having his captors ignore his pleas for help as he died from within.
And last night, on our local news, there was another story about cops shooting to death an unarmed suspect. Here in Florida, it happens all the time.
Yeah, I'll Godwin this thread right at the start: we're becoming a scarily authoritarian state. It's not as though certain people haven't noticed it and tried to warn us, though.
Posted by: litbrit | August 13, 2008 at 09:31 AM
That's just plain evil.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | August 13, 2008 at 04:49 PM
I was just looking at a map of botched paramilitary raids at http://www.cato.org/raidmap/ . It made me pretty angry.
Posted by: Max Kingsbury | August 14, 2008 at 01:16 AM
Max, thanks for that link. I'd never seen that map before. Sickening.
I guess this is what Republicans and Libertarians mean by "get the government out of my life."
Posted by: Lisa Simeone | August 14, 2008 at 08:04 AM