A Haitian man who had been living in Dorchester died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody this week after an untreated tooth infection led to sepsis, according to his family.
Emmanuel Damas, 56, had been held at the Florence Correctional Center in Arizona since around October, after his arrest in Boston on a domestic incident involving his son.
In mid-February, Damas told personnel at the Florence facility that he had a toothache, but he was not sent to a dentist, his brother Presly Nelson said in an interview.
Damas was seeking asylum and had entered the country legally through a Joe Biden-era humanitarian parole program for Haitians in 2024, Nelson said.
Damas died Monday at a Scottsdale hospital, after the family chose to take him off life support. He had been receiving treatment for more than 10 days, his family said. The detention center had only given Damas over-the-counter medication for his pain, according to his family.
Damas had two sons in Boston, the youngest of whom is a 13-year-old in seventh grade.
“It’s like treating a human being like they’re nobody,” Nelson said. “As an American, I’m very ashamed, I’m very disheartened.”
Over the weekend, Nelson rushed from Boston to Arizona to see his brother after receiving a call from the hospital that Damas was in critical condition and might not have much time left. In the hospital, Nelson found his brother on life support. Still, Damas was handcuffed to the hospital bed, had a chain on his body, and two security officers were stationed by his room, Nelson said.
“He could barely blink his eyes — he was in a vegetative state, motionless, on life support,” Nelson, 47, said. “But he still had handcuffs on . . . it was so hurtful.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Friday that it alerted Damas’ family about his worsening conditioning as well as Congress after his death. The statement confirmed Damas was held to be deported, though he had appealed. The department also said it provided adequate medical care.
“ICE is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments,” the statement said. “At no time during detention is a detained alien denied emergency care.”
But Damas’s death sparked outrage among lawmakers in Massachusetts and Arizona. On Thursday, Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, along with Representative Ayanna Pressley, wrote a letter to homeland security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE acting director Todd Lyons demanding a full investigation. They also called on the DHS to provide proper medical treatment care to detainees as a matter of standard.
The letter was sent the same day Noem was fired by President Trump amid mounting criticism of her leadership of DHS. Damas is at least the 10th person to die in ICE custody this year, the lawmakers said.
After Damas first informed staff of his nagging tooth pain, he visited the health clinic at the detention center over the course of Feb. 17 and Feb. 18. He was given over-the-counter medications but was reportedly denied dental treatment, according to the lawmakers. Several days later, Damas told his family that his condition had worsened and he could no longer speak properly. He informed them he would finally be taken to a hospital, the letter states.
On Feb. 20, staff at the HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Medical Center told his family that Damas was suffering from pneumonia and had been placed on life support in the intensive care unit, where he remained in critical condition, according to the letter. But for days after that, neither family nor lawmakers received clear updates on his medical condition and whereabouts, they said.
As the family continued to press for updates, Markey reached out to ICE on the their behalf. “ICE did not provide satisfactory answers,” and officials said they could not release information unless a privacy form was signed, lawmakers say in the letter.
“Senator Markey had made clear that a Privacy Release Form was impossible given that it was unclear where Mr. Damas was located and if he was even alive,” the letter says.
Several days later, the family learned that Damas had been transferred to a nearby hospital, and was scheduled for surgery on Feb. 26. He died on March 2.
Damas, who worked as a mechanic in Haiti, and his sons had fled gang violence in their native country, his family told the Globe. Nelson had sponsored Damas to come to the US in February 2024, and the family lived in Dorchester. Damas and his sons thought they had reached safety here, Nelson said, and they were excited for the 13-year-old’s education in Boston.
“It was like a dream come true when they came,” Nelson said. “It was a relief, considering all the turmoil that’s been going on in Haiti.”
Now, the family, and the boys, are left devastated.
Massachusetts District Court records show that Damas was arrested in September and charged with assault and battery, a misdemeanor. His family said that police took Damas to the station after he gave what they characterized as a slap on the back of the son’s head following a misunderstanding.
Damas was quickly released after the family posted bail, but ICE officers had arrived to the police precinct to detain him. “An officer came out and said, ‘I’m sorry, he was picked up by a federal agent,’ ” Nelson said.
Nelson and his twin brother, Presner Nelson, said they were in close touch with an immigration attorney to try to get their brother out of detention. Damas called both of his brothers, his children, and his mother back in Boston often, remaining positive about his chances to reunite with them, his family said.
“He was hopeful that one day he was going to come back home,” said Presner Nelson.
His family alleges that ICE did not provide Damas with timely medical care. This allowed the untreated toothache “to become a deadly infection,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. And from Boston, the brothers, and their mother, spent their time constantly calling the detention facility and the hospital trying to get more information. And they were often stonewalled, they said.
Damas‘s death, the lawmakers said, was “a tragedy and likely, a highly preventable one.”
His death comes amid growing concerns about the conditions inside federal immigration detention centers, with last year marking the deadliest in ICE history in over two decades, lawmakers said.
The Florence detention center where Damas was held is operated by CoreCivic, a massive private prison operator, which contracts with ICE across the country.
Presly Nelson has lived in the US for almost three decades, and became an American citizen after first moving here on a scholarship to study in Wisconsin. He had hoped his brother and his nephews would be able to experience the America he had come to love — a country that embraced people from all over the world.
“That was the compassionate country that I’ve come to appreciate and respect,” Nelson said. “This country is great because of its diversity, and without it, I think we become weaker and weaker.”
Now, Nelson wonders: “If he [Damas] were still back in Haiti, he would not have died like this.”
After his brother passed away, Nelson received a call from an official at ICE, he said. The agency was requesting his address, so they could send him a letter of condolence. While he appreciated the call and passed along his address, he felt it was too little, much too late.
“What’s that going to do for me,” Nelson said. “Is the letter going to bring my brother back to life?”
The original online version of this article was updated to include a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at giulia.mcdnr@globe.com. Follow her @giuliamcdnr. Shannon Larson can be reached at shannon.larson@globe.com. Follow her @shannonlarson98.