Immigrant nightmare
Feb 14, 2006 15:27:28 GMT -5
Post by Woodson on Feb 14, 2006 15:27:28 GMT -5
From the New York Post Online Edition:
Immigrant nightmare
by Stefanie Cohen, Erika Martinez and Bill Sanderson
February 10, 2006 -- MOM IN FEDS' GRIP LOSES TWIN BABIES
Federal agents who seized an illegal Chinese immigrant in
Philadelphia - hustling her off to JFK Airport for deportation - ignored the pregnant woman's pleas for medical help for so long that she lost the twin babies she was carrying, her shocked husband and Chinese community leaders charged yesterday.
"You can't treat illegal immigrants like that," Tianxia Zhang
said yesterday at Jamaica Hospital, where his wife, Zhenxing Jiang, was recovering from surgery.
"We are not terrorists," said Zhang. "I've worked here for 11 years, and I've paid taxes for 10 of those years. We have devoted ourselves to this country."
Queens City Councilman John Liu, who saw Jiang at Jamaica Hospital on Wednesday, said the issue was not her immigration status but her treatment by federal agents.
"The issue is a pregnant woman is feeling pain. She asks for medical assistance, and she is denied," Liu said.
He called Jiang's treatment "atrocious."
Zhang and the couple's sons accompanied Jiang to her 9 a.m. appointment Tuesday morning with an immigration officer in Philadelphia. There, Zhang said, his wife was ushered into an office while he and the boys waited
outside.
Zhang said an immigration agent told his wife: "You're
supposed to go back to China."
"I'm pregnant. I want my baby born here," Jiang responded.
"No. You have to go back," said the agent.
Then two Immigration agents hustled Jiang out a backdoor, into an elevator and outside into a waiting van.
Jiang said she bumped her belly against the van. The trip from Philadelphia to Kennedy Airport took about three hours.
"It was cold," Jiang said from her hospital bed. "I had no
feeling. I had no food, no drink. I asked for a drink."
The agents gave her a drink and some cookies.
At the airport, the woman and the agents sat in the van for three hours.
During a trip to the bathroom, Jiang said, she felt pain -
which she reported to the agents.
"I need an ambulance," she said.
She said the agents ignored her pleas until around 5 p.m.,
but, in a written statement, Immigration officials said her medical woes "were addressed immediately" by Fire Department EMTs.
An ambulance took her to Jamaica Hospital, where doctors found that she was pregnant with twins - and that both fetuses had died.
stefanie.cohen@nypost.com
Immigrant nightmare
by Stefanie Cohen, Erika Martinez and Bill Sanderson
February 10, 2006 -- MOM IN FEDS' GRIP LOSES TWIN BABIES
Federal agents who seized an illegal Chinese immigrant in
Philadelphia - hustling her off to JFK Airport for deportation - ignored the pregnant woman's pleas for medical help for so long that she lost the twin babies she was carrying, her shocked husband and Chinese community leaders charged yesterday.
"You can't treat illegal immigrants like that," Tianxia Zhang
said yesterday at Jamaica Hospital, where his wife, Zhenxing Jiang, was recovering from surgery.
"We are not terrorists," said Zhang. "I've worked here for 11 years, and I've paid taxes for 10 of those years. We have devoted ourselves to this country."
Queens City Councilman John Liu, who saw Jiang at Jamaica Hospital on Wednesday, said the issue was not her immigration status but her treatment by federal agents.
"The issue is a pregnant woman is feeling pain. She asks for medical assistance, and she is denied," Liu said.
He called Jiang's treatment "atrocious."
Zhang and the couple's sons accompanied Jiang to her 9 a.m. appointment Tuesday morning with an immigration officer in Philadelphia. There, Zhang said, his wife was ushered into an office while he and the boys waited
outside.
Zhang said an immigration agent told his wife: "You're
supposed to go back to China."
"I'm pregnant. I want my baby born here," Jiang responded.
"No. You have to go back," said the agent.
Then two Immigration agents hustled Jiang out a backdoor, into an elevator and outside into a waiting van.
Jiang said she bumped her belly against the van. The trip from Philadelphia to Kennedy Airport took about three hours.
"It was cold," Jiang said from her hospital bed. "I had no
feeling. I had no food, no drink. I asked for a drink."
The agents gave her a drink and some cookies.
At the airport, the woman and the agents sat in the van for three hours.
During a trip to the bathroom, Jiang said, she felt pain -
which she reported to the agents.
"I need an ambulance," she said.
She said the agents ignored her pleas until around 5 p.m.,
but, in a written statement, Immigration officials said her medical woes "were addressed immediately" by Fire Department EMTs.
An ambulance took her to Jamaica Hospital, where doctors found that she was pregnant with twins - and that both fetuses had died.
stefanie.cohen@nypost.com