‘An incomplete happiness’: An activist wins his freedom after nearly two years of medical neglect at an ICE facility
21 September 2026 at 09:42
Colombian Julián Palacios Obregón spent 650 days in immigration detention in the United States. He was sick for most of that time. A month after being transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington state, he began vomiting and suffering diarrhea with fecal incontinence that forced him to wear diapers. Although he was prescribed antibiotics that temporarily improved symptoms caused by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, the underlying problem repeatedly returned: he remained exposed to cloudy water and to food he often described as raw or foul-smelling.