The Washington Post, The New York Times and CBS’ “60 Minutes” have been critical of the Division of Immigration Health Services, the federal agency that oversees health care inside the detention centers. The Post, citing confidential medical records and other sources in stories this week, labeled as questionable 30 out of 83 inmate deaths between March 2003 and March 2008.

Among the 30 is the case of Jesus Cervantes-Corona. The 42-year-old Mexican died of coronary artery disease on Nov. 19, 2006, while in the custody of the Northwest Detention Center on the Tideflats.

The spokeswoman for the Seattle bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Wednesday that she wasn’t sure why Cervantes-Corona’s death was listed as questionable.

“He was only in our custody about 28 hours,” Lorie Dankers said.

Federal officials took custody of Cervantes-Corona from King County as part of the Criminal Alien Program – when immigration officials take custody of immigrants who are booked into local jails and prisons – at 7 p.m. Nov. 17, 2006, she said. Two days later at 5 a.m., he was pronounced dead at an undisclosed Pierce County hospital.

Other details couldn’t be released because of privacy laws. The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy and determined Cervantes-Corona died of natural causes, administrative assistant Sharon Johnson said.

He remains the only inmate to die while in the custody of the Northwest Detention Center. The facility opened in 2004.

“We have a very vigorous health care system,” Dankers said, “and we take the death of any detainee seriously. We have medical facilities on site to treat those things to come up. If not, we call a specialist. That’s what happened in this case.”

Cervantes-Corona died during his third cycle through the federal immigration system. Federal officials first deported him in January 2003. Immigration officials again took custody of Cervantes-Corona in April 2004 and deported him later that month.

Another criticism the Post raised with the health care agency was chronic understaffing of medical workers. The Northwest Detention Center hasn’t had that problem, Dankers said.

The nursing staff is at 90 percent capacity, she said, and all but two provider positions – consisting of physicians, nurse practioners and physician’s assistants – are filled. Someone has already been hired for one of the vacancies, she said, and will start in late June.

In the last fiscal year, she said, federal immigration detention centers had a death-per-100,000 rate of 3.5. (In fiscal 2006, the rate was nearly double, at 6.7 per 100,000.) The U.S. Department of Justice reported a rate of 501 deaths per 100,000 prisoners at state, local and federal jails and prisons in 2006.

But the stays at these prisons are far longer than tenures at immigration sites, where detainees are held while they await trial and, often, deportation.

All detainee deaths are reported to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. The Office of Professional Responsibility began oversight of detainee health programs in February 2007.

“We found that in Tacoma that the medical care meets or exceeds what people in the community might get,” Dankers said. “If it doesn’t, we’ll take corrective action.”

Scott Fontaine: 253-320-4758

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