Mamuka was not a public safety threat, may not have broken a single law, couldn't be deported, and shouldn't have been arrested. ICE forced taxpayers to pay $18,000 detaining him anyway.
This is gut-wrenching. Human beings. Our neighbors. People who have due process and are being treated brutally. The bullies in charge will go down in history as lawless cowards.
Thank you for this article. It is detailed information all need to read.
I'm only belatedly reading this. One thing caught my eye:
DHS confirmed the change and called it “common sense,” insisting the agency is “not responsible when an individual passes away weeks after leaving their custody.”
That--the facility is not responsible because the individual is no longer physically present--absolutely is NOT common sense. That's not how health care works, for instance.
I work in hospital revenue management, in other words, on insurance denials of reimbursement for hospital care. One very standard insurance denial is the 30 Day Readmission Denial. A 30 Day Readmission Denial is a policy under which a third party payer either refuses payment or downgrades payment for patients re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge for a certain condition. This effectively holds the hospital responsible for the patient for up to 30 days following discharge.
In other words, suppose I'm discharged from the hospital on June 1 for treatment of a condition, but am re-admitted on June 20th. Insurance can deny or downgrade payment on the grounds that the hospital was presumptively responsible for the patient's condition for up to a month after discharge. The defeasible presumption is that if the patient is re-admitted for the same condition within a month of discharge, then the hospital did an inadequate job of treatment. The policy is there to disincentivize premature discharge from the hospital, or discharge without a transitional sub-acute treatment plan. The insurance version of the policy is a spin-off of CMS's Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which has a similar goal.
Obviously, the 30 Day Readmission Denial is not literally the same as the Biden-era reporting requirement on DHS, but it has a similar motivation and structure. If a facility has a strong incentive to abandon a vulnerable patient, there needs to be a way to hold them responsible for the patient's welfare after technical discharge from the facility (or else to disincentivize premature discharge from the facility). In the hospital context, the accountability mechanism is denial of payment. In the incarceration context, I guess it's reporting. Either way, it's DHS's position that defies common sense, not the reporting requirement.
The 30 Day Readmission Denial is very imperfect. It can saddle hospitals with problems that are beyond their control. But it's also documented that hospitals discharge patients for clinically problematic reasons, just to decrease their Average Length of Stay statistics. If a patient is costing the facility too much, they may want him out the door. They'll hesitate to do that if they know that they'll be denied payment if he comes back within a month. The same basic logic operates to the DHS reporting requirement.
Bottom line: whether the patient passes away or has a recurrence of a prior condition, the facility can and should be held responsible for him even after he leaves the facility.
This is gut-wrenching. Human beings. Our neighbors. People who have due process and are being treated brutally. The bullies in charge will go down in history as lawless cowards.
Thank you for this article. It is detailed information all need to read.
Thank you for this reporting Austin. I will be updating the ICE/CBP Related Death Tracker to reflect this report. I appreciate you!
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sYlvF/15/
I'm only belatedly reading this. One thing caught my eye:
DHS confirmed the change and called it “common sense,” insisting the agency is “not responsible when an individual passes away weeks after leaving their custody.”
That--the facility is not responsible because the individual is no longer physically present--absolutely is NOT common sense. That's not how health care works, for instance.
I work in hospital revenue management, in other words, on insurance denials of reimbursement for hospital care. One very standard insurance denial is the 30 Day Readmission Denial. A 30 Day Readmission Denial is a policy under which a third party payer either refuses payment or downgrades payment for patients re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge for a certain condition. This effectively holds the hospital responsible for the patient for up to 30 days following discharge.
In other words, suppose I'm discharged from the hospital on June 1 for treatment of a condition, but am re-admitted on June 20th. Insurance can deny or downgrade payment on the grounds that the hospital was presumptively responsible for the patient's condition for up to a month after discharge. The defeasible presumption is that if the patient is re-admitted for the same condition within a month of discharge, then the hospital did an inadequate job of treatment. The policy is there to disincentivize premature discharge from the hospital, or discharge without a transitional sub-acute treatment plan. The insurance version of the policy is a spin-off of CMS's Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which has a similar goal.
Obviously, the 30 Day Readmission Denial is not literally the same as the Biden-era reporting requirement on DHS, but it has a similar motivation and structure. If a facility has a strong incentive to abandon a vulnerable patient, there needs to be a way to hold them responsible for the patient's welfare after technical discharge from the facility (or else to disincentivize premature discharge from the facility). In the hospital context, the accountability mechanism is denial of payment. In the incarceration context, I guess it's reporting. Either way, it's DHS's position that defies common sense, not the reporting requirement.
The 30 Day Readmission Denial is very imperfect. It can saddle hospitals with problems that are beyond their control. But it's also documented that hospitals discharge patients for clinically problematic reasons, just to decrease their Average Length of Stay statistics. If a patient is costing the facility too much, they may want him out the door. They'll hesitate to do that if they know that they'll be denied payment if he comes back within a month. The same basic logic operates to the DHS reporting requirement.
Bottom line: whether the patient passes away or has a recurrence of a prior condition, the facility can and should be held responsible for him even after he leaves the facility.
Here’s the link to the Updated ICE/CBP Death Tracker info. We are now at 28 deaths in 2026.
https://substack.com/profile/114478933-ali-hart/note/c-275194947?r=1w5oid&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
If they ‘report’ it my guess is the actual number is much much higher.