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When José sat at the table for his turn before an immigration judge in mid-June, he placed a stack of paper towels on the chair and gingerly eased himself down.
Immigration Judge George Najjar appeared on a video screen on the wall in the courtroom inside Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, as did the attorneys representing José and the U.S. government. As the judge and José’s attorney went back and forth about the status of José’s case, José, who is not being fully identified due to retaliation concerns, raised his hand to speak.
Neither the judge nor the attorneys noticed.
As the judge wound down the hearing, José broke his silence.
“I have something to explain to the judge about what is happening to me,” he said in Spanish. “I have cancer, and I’m really suffering. There is no medical treatment here. I’m bleeding every day.”
He pulled out a jar of bright red blood and set it on the table in front of him. Many of the people in the courtroom gasped in unison.
“This is the proof I have,” José said. “This is the blood I’ve lost today.”
Since Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody in January, he has been trying to get treatment for what he says is colon cancer. José told Beyond the Border that ICE and CoreCivic, the private prison company that runs Otay Mesa Detention Center, have failed to give him proper medical attention.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment. CoreCivic said that José is being regularly monitored and that his needs are being addressed.
Medical records from Kaiser Permanente show that José went to a Los Angeles emergency room in April 2024, where doctors documented rectal bleeding and anemia, among other health concerns. The doctors tried to hospitalize him but, because no beds were available, they eventually sent him home, instructing him to follow up with a colonoscopy as soon as possible, according to the records.
Soon after, José was arrested near Tecate, California, after picking up a fellow Guatemalan man who didn’t have permission to be in the U.S., according to court records. He was taken to Otay Mesa Detention Center in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
José said he told staff at the facility about his condition when he entered, but he never received the treatment he needed.
José pleaded guilty to one felony count of “transportation of certain aliens,” the court records show. The judge sentenced him to time served and waived his fine, but when he was released from criminal custody, he ended up in ICE custody and was taken back to the same facility, this time fighting against deportation.
According to medical records from Otay Mesa Detention Center from January, he told the facility’s medical staff as soon as he arrived that he had colon cancer.
At the court hearing in mid-June, Judge Najjar asked the attorney representing ICE why José wasn’t getting medical treatment.
ICE attorney Christine Rutherford told the judge that the agency was waiting for CoreCivic to assess whether it could provide the requested care or whether he would need to be transferred to another detention facility.
José asked Najjar whether the judge would be willing to release him to get treatment.
“I can feel it in my body,” José said. “I am dying little by little.”
But because of José’s criminal conviction, Najjar said, the law requires him to be detained. That’s because José’s conviction is one of many crimes that fall under a category called aggravated felonies. Those crimes — a mix of misdemeanors and felonies in the criminal context — have particularly severe consequences in immigration law.
“I don’t lack sympathy for you,” Najjar said. “I just don’t have any authority to do anything about it. I don’t have any authority to do what you want.”
About two weeks later, at another hearing, Najjar again pushed the ICE attorney for information about José’s medical treatment and learned that CoreCivic had scheduled a colonoscopy for José, but the attorney did not know when.
Najjar told José and his attorney that they would have to go to federal district court if they wanted to push for more care, that the issue was out of his hands.
At the end of the hearing, José told the judge that he was dizzy. As soon as the hearing ended, a guard came to escort him to the medical unit. But according to José’s wife, the staff did little for him there, and he ended up back in his unit the same as before.
On Thursday, José had a bond hearing to request that he be allowed to pay to get out of detention as a promise to show up in court.
As he waited on a bench before that hearing, José asked the detention facility guard if he could leave the courtroom to get a drink of water. He said he wasn’t feeling well.
He moved slowly, clearly in pain. As Immigration Judge Guy Grande progressed through the afternoon cases, José didn’t return. A guard’s voice could be heard in the hallway, trying to convince him to go to the medical unit, but José insisted on remaining for his hearing.
When he came back into the courtroom for his turn, he was in a wheelchair, doubled over in apparent pain.
His attorney argued that even though his criminal conviction made him subject to mandatory detention, the U.S. Constitution should allow him to be released because holding him without treating his medical condition was inhumane.
The ICE attorney, Jonathan Grant, argued that José had to be detained because of his criminal conviction. He said that CoreCivic staff reported on June 11 that José “does not have a confirmed diagnosis of colon cancer.” He added that José would have a colonoscopy in August.
Grande agreed with ICE that José would remain in custody without bond. José raised his hand to try to speak, but the judge told him to direct his questions to his attorney. José shook his head weakly as the judge moved on to another case. The hearing had lasted 16 minutes.
A guard wheeled José to the door. His head was lowered to the side. Though his wheelchair stayed in the doorway for a couple of minutes, he did not look up.
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