US officials used their role as overseers of the country's immigrant detention centres to cover up evidence of mistreatment and deflect scrutiny by the media, The New York Times has reported.
Citing documents in its possession, the newspaper said that investigators had concluded that unbearable, untreated pain had been a significant factor in the 2007 suicide of a 22-year-old immigrant detainee at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey, and that the medical unit was so poorly run that other detainees were at risk.
The investigation found that medical personnel at the jail had falsified a medication log to show that the detainee, a Salvadoran named Nery Romero, had been given Motrin.
But the fake entry was easy to detect, the report said. When the drug was supposedly administered, Romero was already dead.
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