Daphy Michel, from Haiti, was dropped off in Pittsburgh in 20F temperatures wearing summer clothes

The family of a Haitian immigrant who froze to death in early March at a bus shelter in Pittsburgh after she was dropped off in the city by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is poised to file a lawsuit this month against the United States and “multiple other governmental and non-governmental entities”, the Guardian has learned.

Daphy Michel, 31, had been in county jail for six months after a reported mental health crisis and street incident, and then was arrested by ICE before being released with a ankle monitor.

She was left to make her way home to Charleroi, a small community on the outskirts of Pittsburgh about 20 miles (32km) away, but was found dead three days later. In June, Pennsylvania officials said she died from hypothermia and ruled her death a homicide.

  • Aqivex@fedinsfw.appEnglish
    35·
    11 hours ago

    It’s worse than that. She had a mental health crisis and what the article terms a “street incident”. The article makes it clear that she was in crisis, visibly, and faced a strong language barrier.

    So what happened to her? Not a hospital. Not care. She was put in a county jail. For SIX MONTHS.

    THEN comes ICE. She’s already spent six months in a confusing hellscape where even the cruelty is as ad-hoc and unstructured as everything else besides the actual routines of confinement.

    Six. Fucking. Months.

    After ICE did what they did…she didn’t even wander. She was so broken, confused and lost that she just treated it as a continuation of her confinement:

    Surveillance camera images show Michel at the bus shelter on Pittsburgh’s south side, sitting on the bench in daylight at first on 1 March, with a small, pale bag of belongings, still sitting there in darkness that evening, then slumped half upright on the ground and eventually lying on the ground the following morning.

    She didn’t even move from that spot. A human being in need of help, and they might as well have driven her and thrown in her a dumpster, it would have had the same effect.

    ICE is only one piece of the course corrections required and very important, but the system practically killed her six months before they did the actual murder.

    There’s more than a couple of chuds in an SUV to just.

    • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      11 hours ago

      A human being in need of help, and they might as well have driven her and thrown in her a dumpster, it would have had the same effect.

      I don’t think ICE viewed her as human, sadly.