Fearing for his life, he sought safety in the U.S. He ended up in a wheelchair.
Facundo Hernandez is afraid the people looking to kill him will read this story, but he says the U.S. government left him no other choice.
“I can’t go back home because the cartel thinks I snitched on them to border patrol and wants me dead,” Hernandez said in Spanish. “I served my time for crossing the border but the government is still trying to deport me even though they left me unable to walk or fend for myself.”
Hernandez suffered a crippling back and head injury while serving a seven-month prison sentence for illegal re-entry. He spent three months in an El Paso County Jail, which has a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, and four months in a federal prison. After serving his sentence, he spent five months in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Chaparral, New Mexico.
In April, Hernandez was released by ICE in a wheelchair after months of isolation, missed doctor’s appointments and no physical therapy, according to experts who reviewed Hernandez’s medical records. He said he can’t feel his legs and can’t walk but he can move a few toes on his left foot.
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office and ICE said Hernandez received adequate medical care and accommodations compliant with his condition after the accident. The U.S. Marshals, responsible for the care and custody of Hernandez while he served his federal prison sentence, denied comment, citing privacy issues.
“Comprehensive medical care is provided to all individuals in ICE custody,” the agency wrote in a statement. “Staffing includes registered nurses and licensed practical nurses, licensed mental health providers, mid-level providers that include a physician’s assistant and nurse practitioner, a physician, dental care, and access to 24-hour emergency care.”
Reports of medical neglect and abuse against immigrants in U.S. detention centers are not rare. In October, 19 women came forward alleging they underwent medical procedures, including the removal of their reproductive organs, without their consent while they were held at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times. In December 2019, ProPublica published a video showing the death of a sick teen on the concrete floor of a Border Patrol holding cell in South Texas after officers failed to provide the teen medical attention.
Hernandez’s story not only highlights the neglect immigrants face in detention, but it also shows the lack of support for asylum seekers fleeing violence, said his legal adviser, Rosa De Jong, a Justice Department-accredited representative with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso.
Hernandez is seeking protection from deportation under asylum laws but it could take up to three years for an immigration judge to decide his fate, DeJong said. Hernandez told an asylum officer he was afraid to go back to Mexico because the cartel is looking for him in a December 2019 reasonable fear interview reviewed by the Star-Telegram.
“There’s nothing he can do but wait,” she said. “He was denied a work permit so he can’t pay for his medication or afford the physical therapy he needs to walk again.”
Hernandez, who lives in Fort Worth, said he’s done sitting around waiting and living in fear, so he reached out to the Star-Telegram to tell his story. He hopes someone who reads it will help him find assistance with his medical and financial needs.
A better life
Hernandez, 33, left his home in Mexico in search of a better life in February 2019. He and a friend planned to find work in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, until they had enough money to pay a smuggler to cross them into the U.S.
In Juarez, while checking out a construction job, the two were kidnapped by La Linea, an international criminal organization that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says operates on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. They were held for two weeks before Hernandez was forced to smuggle a group of migrants through the desert, he said.
His friend stayed as collateral to make sure Hernandez came back and did not say anything to authorities. But the group was apprehended after it crossed into the United States, and someone told authorities about La Linea’s involvement, according to Hernandez.
While in custody, Hernandez said, other inmates who worked for La Linea blamed Hernandez for snitching and threatened to kill him. After eight days in a New Mexico jail Hernandez was deported across the Paso del Norte bridge back to Ciudad Juarez, according court records.
The cartel was waiting for him on the other side, Hernandez said.
Hernandez hid for four weeks until he was able to come up with the $1,500 he needed to pay a smuggler to flee to the United States.
When Hernandez was caught by border patrol a second time on April 14, 2019, he told officers he was being persecuted by the cartel. While in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Hernandez was sent to a holding cell with members of the same criminal organization who threatened his life, he said. He was transferred a few days later to an El Paso County Jail that contracts with the U.S. Marshall’s to house federal inmates.
“I thought I was going to be safer where they moved me,” Hernandez said. “I never imagined the guards and nurses in jail would be the ones turning my life into a nightmare.”
A nightmare
The last thing Hernandez remembers from June 2, 2019, was taking seven or eight pills from a little white cup that was given to him by a nurse inside the El Paso County Jail to treat a cold. He began to feel nauseous and went to bed but his cell mates said he was talking to himself and hallucinating.
The cell mates were eating lunch at the center of the cell block when they saw Hernandez through a glass window fall from the top bunk, land on his knees and hit his head on the metal frame of the bottom bed, according to Hernandez.
They told him the guards dragged his limp body to the hallway and used a defibrillator to revive him. It took medical staff about 15 minutes to arrive, according to Hernandez.
Since 2018, at least 33 migrants have died in ICE custody, according to news releases from the agency. At least nine have died in Texas, including a 22-year-old Guatemalan woman seeking asylum who died in March at a Fort Worth hospital.
In September, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security released a report saying ICE detention facilities failed to meet basic standards of medical care for migrants like Hernandez.
The report also found unsanitary conditions, challenges for migrants trying to access legal and translation services and officers misusing or abusing solitary confinement as a form of retaliation.
Lack of care
When Hernandez returned from the hospital, he was taken to solitary confinement at the El Paso County Jail, according to Hernandez.
“They kept telling me that there was nothing wrong with me and that the accident never happened,” Hernandez said. “They would take my chair and clothes and leave me alone for hours in the showers. Then officers and nurses would come in and scream at me to get up and walk.”
The El Paso Sheriff’s Office denied Hernandez’s claims that he was held in isolation as retaliation or that he was denied medical help. Hernandez was taken into ICE custody in November and held at the Otero County Processing Center until April of this year. He was released on an order of supervision pending resolution of his immigration case.
The so-called “Remain in Mexico policy” implemented in January of 2019 does not apply to Hernandez because he is a Mexican citizen, according to his legal advisor.
In a statement, ICE said prison medical records show Hernandez suffered trauma after he fell off a bunk while in U.S. Marshals custody. The agency said Hernandez was prescribed medication for pain and muscle spasms and referred to physical therapy. ICE also said Hernandez had a history of back pain and scoliosis and that he was diagnosed with lumbar spondylosis, or normal wear and tear of the spinal disks.
Hernandez said he never had back problems before he was sent to prison.
Altaf Saadi, a neurologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Asylum Clinic, reviewed Hernandez’s medical records. In a letter of support of Hernandez’s asylum claim, she wrote Hernandez’s records showed he had a bulging disk in his lower spine caused by neck and/or back trauma after the June 2019 accident.
She also wrote that symptoms typically resolve in four to six weeks if the patient receives adequate medical care. Hernandez had five falls between June and September of 2019, according to his medical records.
After the fifth recorded fall, officers took Hernandez to a hospital where he was again evaluated, but this time the scans did not show any major abnormalities, according to Saadi. A doctor determined Hernandez’s symptoms could be pain-related and ordered a follow up in two months. Another doctor suggested three to five physical therapy sessions per week but none of these follow-ups were done, according to Saadi.
Hernandez said he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him because he has not received a medical evaluation outside of detention.
“I’m done sitting around waiting, and living in fear,” Hernandez said. “My family needs me, and I have to keep fighting for them and our dreams.”
“Only God knows why I survived all of this and the path he’s paved for me,” Hernandez said. “I just need some help getting back up.”
Hernandez’ family set up a Gofundme page for donations.
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
