Where's your Humanity?

The moment we decide to imprison an individual, we become responsible for their well being. I fear however, that too many of us do not consider this to be true, if they think about it at all. We the country who preaches such ideals as equality, liberty and freedom, are being proven hypocrites.

Brought about by articles recently published by The Washington Post, L.A. Times and The New York Times, Representative Zoe Lofgren of California and Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey recently introduced the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act of 2008. “Dying in Detention,” is one such commentary featured in yesterdays The New York Times, which sheds some light on the despicable lack of care provided to detainees by the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The commentary rightly criticizes our government, namely the Bush Administration of willfully neglecting imprisoned persons health care namely when “the people in custody are illegal immigrants.”

“Dying in Detention” is an article written not just to educate people, but also to shock them. To accomplish this they used the story of Francisco Castaneda an immigrant from El Salvador. While imprisoned Castaneda was denied what medical officials deemed as an “urgently needed biopsy” among other medical treatments. During the next 11 months of incarceration Castaneda had been repeatedly denied this procedure that was ear marked as “elective” by outside officials who effectively killed Francisco Castaneda by overriding the opinions of medical experts.

Representative Steve King’s quote: “Why should the American people be responsible for paying Rolls-Royce medical care for illegal aliens?” is yet another wake-up call. Does our government and our people really believe that providing health care for immigrants is bad? It makes me cringe to think of how many people think that it is.

On a more heartening note the commentary goes on to address what I hope is the beginning of a resolution. The Detainee Medical Bill Act of 2008 would “impose more rigorous standards” for federally and privately ran institutions. The article also states that the “current rules” for said prisons are “voluntary, not legally enforceable” and that the new act would require all deaths be reported to the Justice Department and Congress.

It breaks my heart that after all these years and all the progress made in our country we still have people who are just as ignorant as ever running our country. Does it matter that a person is in the U.S. illegally? Does this make them any less of a human being? Is it not the position of the U.S., our government that we should fight oppression?

It heartens me that we have people like Rep. Lofgren and Sen. Menendez who are willing to standing up for people whom our country refuses to give the most basic of rights to.

Nelson Mandela once said: “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones…”