December 23, 2019
Cameron Quinn
Officer
Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Building 410, Mail Stop #0190
Washington, D.C. 20528
Dear Ms. Quinn:
The Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is writing to request documents
and information relating to reports of gross negligence by medical staff treating detainees in the
custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In March, the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) reportedly issued a
memorandum recounting allegations that the ICE Health Service Corps “has systematically
provided inadequate medical and mental health care and oversight to immigration detainees in
facilities throughout the U.S.” 1
According to a recent news report, CRCL received at least 17 complaints of inadequate
medical treatment or oversight at nine different facilities, resulting in two preventable surgeries
and contributing to four deaths. These complaints include immigrants receiving incorrect
medications, immigrants dealing with severe withdrawal symptoms, and the ICE Health Service
Corps’ leadership being “unresponsive or even dishonest when confronted.” 2
Specific examples of inadequate care include:
•

An eight-year-old boy who had part of his forehead removed due to a delayed
diagnosis;

1
Memorandum from Cameron P. Quinn and March Pachon to Ronald Vitiello and Michael P. Davis, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (Mar. 20, 2019) (online at
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6575024/ICE-Whistleblower-Report.pdf).
2

A Child’s Forehead Partially Removed, Four Deaths, The Wrong Medicine: A Secret Report Exposes
Health Care for Jailed Immigrants, Buzzfeed News (Dec. 12, 2019) (online at
www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ice-immigrant-surgeries-deaths-jails-whistleblower-secret).

 Ms. Cameron Quinn
Page 2
•

A man who was improperly prescribed aspirin—which is a blood thinner, even
though he was already bleeding through his skin—for six days, resulting in the
detainee coughing up blood and being hospitalized;
A man suffering from psychotic-like symptoms who was improperly prescribed
an anti-depressant, rather than an anti-psychotic, likely worsening his symptoms;
Multiple reports of failures to follow medical procedures to treat drug and alcohol
withdrawal, resulting in hospitalizations;
A man suffering from psychosis-related symptoms who was not treated by the
facility psychiatrist and “became so unstable that he lacerated his penis, requiring
hospitalization and surgery”; and
A man who committed suicide despite apparently being on suicide watch. 3

•
•
•
•

According to the report, most, if not all, of these incidents were the result of gross
negligence on behalf the ICE personnel and medical professionals tasked with caring for
detainees. Reportedly, no action was taken by ICE or the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) to remedy the inadequacies that led to these horrific incidents. The DHS Office of
Inspector General received these complaints beginning in April 2018, and CRCL received the
complaints in July 2018. CRCL did not inform ICE of these issues for another eight months, and
in the nine months since then, the medical treatment of ICE detainees seemingly has not
improved. 4
Furthermore, the CRCL memorandum details that, rather than addressing this medical
neglect, the ICE Health Service Corps reportedly retaliated against the employee who reported
it. 5
For these reasons, the Subcommittee requests that CRCL produce the following
documents, by January 10, 2020, for the time period of January 2017 to present:
1.
2.

3.
4.

3

A copy of the CRCL memorandum referred to in the December 12, 2019, news
report;
All documents referring or relating to the complaints listed in the CRCL
memorandum, including any documents collected in the course of CRCL’s
investigation of the complaints;
All documents relied upon for the CRCL memorandum;
All documents referring or relating to the findings of the CRCL investigation
referenced in the memorandum, including any recommendations to ICE or the
ICE Health Service Corps;

Id.

4

Memorandum from Cameron P. Quinn and March Pachon to Ronald Vitiello and Michael P. Davis, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (Mar. 20, 2019) (online at
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6575024/ICE-Whistleblower-Report.pdf).
5

Id.

 Ms. Cameron Quinn

Page 3

Documents suf?cient to show all complaints received related to the treatment of
detainees, the conduct complained of, and any action taken as a result of the
complaints;

All documents referring or relating to any ICE detainee incidents that include any
allegation of improper, inadequate, or delayed treatment, medical error, and/or
death;

All documents explaining policies and procedures for the handling of
complaints of the kind listed in the CRCL memorandum and for the handling of
incident reports, including remedial action;

All communications with ICE referring or relating to the medical treatment of
detainees, and

All communications with the Of?ce of Inspector General referring or relating to
the medical treatment of detainees.

If any of these documents have been previously produced to the Committee in response

to any other request, please identify those documents.

The Committee on Oversight and Reform is the principal oversight committee of the

House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate ?any matter? at ?any time? under

House Rule X.

An attachment to this letter provides additional instructions for responding to the

Committee?s request. If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact
Committee staff at (202) 225-5051.

Enclosure

CC:

Sincerely,

     

Jamie Raskin

Chairman

Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

The Honorable Chip Roy, Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Responding to Committee Document Requests
1.

In complying with this request, produce all responsive documents that are in your
possession, custody, or control, whether held by you or your past or present agents,
employees, and representatives acting on your behalf. Produce all documents that you
have a legal right to obtain, that you have a right to copy, or to which you have access, as
well as documents that you have placed in the temporary possession, custody, or control
of any third party.

2.

Requested documents, and all documents reasonably related to the requested documents,
should not be destroyed, altered, removed, transferred, or otherwise made inaccessible to
the Committees.

3.

In the event that any entity, organization, or individual denoted in this request is or has
been known by any name other than that herein denoted, the request shall be read also to
include that alternative identification.

4.

The Committees’ preference is to receive documents in electronic form (i.e., CD,
memory stick, thumb drive, or secure file transfer) in lieu of paper productions.

5.

Documents produced in electronic format should be organized, identified, and indexed
electronically.

6.

Electronic document productions should be prepared according to the following
standards:
a.

The production should consist of single page Tagged Image File (“TIF”), files
accompanied by a Concordance-format load file, an Opticon reference file, and a
file defining the fields and character lengths of the load file.

b.

Document numbers in the load file should match document Bates numbers and
TIF file names.

c.

If the production is completed through a series of multiple partial productions,
field names and file order in all load files should match.

d.

All electronic documents produced to the Committees should include the
following fields of metadata specific to each document, and no modifications
should be made to the original metadata:
BEGDOC, ENDDOC, TEXT, BEGATTACH, ENDATTACH, PAGECOUNT,
CUSTODIAN, RECORDTYPE, DATE, TIME, SENTDATE, SENTTIME,
BEGINDATE, BEGINTIME, ENDDATE, ENDTIME, AUTHOR, FROM, CC,
TO, BCC, SUBJECT, TITLE, FILENAME, FILEEXT, FILESIZE,
DATECREATED, TIMECREATED, DATELASTMOD, TIMELASTMOD,

 INTMSGID, INTMSGHEADER, NATIVELINK, INTFILPATH, EXCEPTION,
BEGATTACH.
7.

Documents produced to the Committees should include an index describing the contents
of the production. To the extent more than one CD, hard drive, memory stick, thumb
drive, zip file, box, or folder is produced, each should contain an index describing its
contents.

8.

Documents produced in response to this request shall be produced together with copies of
file labels, dividers, or identifying markers with which they were associated when the
request was served.

9.

When you produce documents, you should identify the paragraph(s) or request(s) in the
Committees’ letter to which the documents respond.

10.

The fact that any other person or entity also possesses non-identical or identical copies of
the same documents shall not be a basis to withhold any information.

11.

The pendency of or potential for litigation shall not be a basis to withhold any
information.

12.

In accordance with 5 U.S.C.§ 552(d), the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and any
statutory exemptions to FOIA shall not be a basis for withholding any information.

13.

Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(9), the Privacy Act shall not be a basis for withholding
information.

14.

If compliance with the request cannot be made in full by the specified return date,
compliance shall be made to the extent possible by that date. An explanation of why full
compliance is not possible shall be provided along with any partial production.

15.

In the event that a document is withheld on the basis of privilege, provide a privilege log
containing the following information concerning any such document: (a) every privilege
asserted; (b) the type of document; (c) the general subject matter; (d) the date, author,
addressee, and any other recipient(s); (e) the relationship of the author and addressee to
each other; and (f) the basis for the privilege(s) asserted.

16.

If any document responsive to this request was, but no longer is, in your possession,
custody, or control, identify the document (by date, author, subject, and recipients), and
explain the circumstances under which the document ceased to be in your possession,
custody, or control.

17.

If a date or other descriptive detail set forth in this request referring to a document is
inaccurate, but the actual date or other descriptive detail is known to you or is otherwise
apparent from the context of the request, produce all documents that would be responsive
as if the date or other descriptive detail were correct.

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 18.

This request is continuing in nature and applies to any newly-discovered information.
Any record, document, compilation of data, or information not produced because it has
not been located or discovered by the return date shall be produced immediately upon
subsequent location or discovery.

19.

All documents shall be Bates-stamped sequentially and produced sequentially.

20.

Two sets of each production shall be delivered, one set to the Majority Staff and one set
to the Minority Staff. When documents are produced to the Committee on Oversight and
Reform, production sets shall be delivered to the Majority Staff in Room 2157 of the
Rayburn House Office Building and the Minority Staff in Room 2105 of the Rayburn
House Office Building. When documents are produced to the Committee on Financial
Services, production sets shall be delivered to the Majority Staff in Room 2129 of the
Rayburn House Office Building and the Minority Staff in Room 4340 of the O’Neill
House Office Building. When documents are produced to the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, production sets shall be delivered to Majority and Minority
Staff in Room HVC-304 of the Capital Visitor Center.

21.

Upon completion of the production, submit a written certification, signed by you or your
counsel, stating that: (1) a diligent search has been completed of all documents in your
possession, custody, or control that reasonably could contain responsive documents; and
(2) all documents located during the search that are responsive have been produced to the
Committee.
Definitions

1.

The term “document” means any written, recorded, or graphic matter of any nature
whatsoever, regardless of how recorded, and whether original or copy, including, but not
limited to, the following: memoranda, reports, expense reports, books, manuals,
instructions, financial reports, data, working papers, records, notes, letters, notices,
confirmations, telegrams, receipts, appraisals, pamphlets, magazines, newspapers,
prospectuses, communications, electronic mail (email), contracts, cables, notations of any
type of conversation, telephone call, meeting or other inter-office or intra-office
communication, bulletins, printed matter, computer printouts, teletypes, invoices,
transcripts, diaries, analyses, returns, summaries, minutes, bills, accounts, estimates,
projections, comparisons, messages, correspondence, press releases, circulars, financial
statements, reviews, opinions, offers, studies and investigations, questionnaires and
surveys, and work sheets (and all drafts, preliminary versions, alterations, modifications,
revisions, changes, and amendments of any of the foregoing, as well as any attachments
or appendices thereto), and graphic or oral records or representations of any kind
(including without limitation, photographs, charts, graphs, microfiche, microfilm,
videotape, recordings and motion pictures), and electronic, mechanical, and electric
records or representations of any kind (including, without limitation, tapes, cassettes,
disks, and recordings) and other written, printed, typed, or other graphic or recorded
matter of any kind or nature, however produced or reproduced, and whether preserved in
writing, film, tape, disk, videotape, or otherwise. A document bearing any notation not a

3

 part of the original text is to be considered a separate document. A draft or non-identical
copy is a separate document within the meaning of this term.
2.

The term “communication” means each manner or means of disclosure or exchange of
information, regardless of means utilized, whether oral, electronic, by document or
otherwise, and whether in a meeting, by telephone, facsimile, mail, releases, electronic
message including email (desktop or mobile device), text message, instant message,
MMS or SMS message, message application, or otherwise.

3.

The terms “and” and “or” shall be construed broadly and either conjunctively or
disjunctively to bring within the scope of this request any information that might
otherwise be construed to be outside its scope. The singular includes plural number, and
vice versa. The masculine includes the feminine and neutral genders.

4.

The term “including” shall be construed broadly to mean “including, but not limited to.”

5.

The term “Company” means the named legal entity as well as any units, firms,
partnerships, associations, corporations, limited liability companies, trusts, subsidiaries,
affiliates, divisions, departments, branches, joint ventures, proprietorships, syndicates, or
other legal, business or government entities over which the named legal entity exercises
control or in which the named entity has any ownership whatsoever.

6.

The term “identify,” when used in a question about individuals, means to provide the
following information: (a) the individual’s complete name and title; (b) the
individual’s business or personal address and phone number; and (c) any and all
known aliases.

7.

The term “related to” or “referring or relating to,” with respect to any given subject,
means anything that constitutes, contains, embodies, reflects, identifies, states, refers to,
deals with, or is pertinent to that subject in any manner whatsoever.

8.

The term “employee” means any past or present agent, borrowed employee, casual
employee, consultant, contractor, de facto employee, detailee, fellow, independent
contractor, intern, joint adventurer, loaned employee, officer, part-time employee,
permanent employee, provisional employee, special government employee,
subcontractor, or any other type of service provider.

9.

The term “individual” means all natural persons and all persons or entities acting on
their behalf.

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