The Life and Death of an Asylum Seeker with Lilly Fowler

Reporter Lilly Fowler discusses what years of reporting on Mergensana Amar tell us about U.S. immigration policy.

The first time that Amar made news in the United States he was in the middle of a hunger strike, a protest against his failed bid for asylum and his imminent deportation after being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. The next time he made the news, he was fighting for his life after a suicide attempt. At least that was the story pieced together from the information provided by officials of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As newly discovered documents now make clear, Amar was officially dead days before authorities acknowledged as much, counter to agency policy that ensures quick notice in matters of death. He was also kept shackled to his bed against the wishes of hospital staff, even after hopes for recovery had been abandoned.

This week on Crosscut Talks, Fowler recounts the story of the Russian national, who sought asylum in the United States. She discusses how these recent findings illuminate the confusing days following news of the suicide attempt and considers what his story tells us about the state of immigration in the United States and the agency charged with caring for those in the system, in life and death.

---

Links

New details of a death at Tacoma ICE facility raise questions over care (Dec. 3, 2020)

An asylum seeker vowed never to return to Russia. His death in ICE custody sent him back (June 10, 2019)

---

Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Jake Newman

Engineer: Resti Bagcal