UPDATE: Federal government sued for withholding medical information of ICE detainee who died at Miami Correctional

The son of an ICE detainee who died at Miami Correctional Facility in north-central Indiana is suing the federal government, accusing it of unlawfully withholding his father’s medical information.

Viccheat Sim says the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, violated the Freedom of Information Act by broadly denying his requests for medical records and reports tied to the Feb. 16 death of Lorth Sim.

The lawsuit was filed in August in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A judge gave the defendants until Oct. 22 to respond to the complaint.

 A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said in a Monday email that they were aware of the complaint.

“ICE provides the best healthcare many aliens have received in their entire lives, and we adhere to higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens,” the email said.

Lorth Sim died Feb. 16 while in custody at Miami Correctional Facility near Bunker Hill.

A coroner ruled the death to be natural after a forensic pathologist conducted an autopsy and traced the cause to cardiovascular disease and other conditions tied to diabetes.

Sim had been diagnosed with type II diabetes and prescribed metformin to treat it, the lawsuit stated, adding that he told the staff at Miami about his condition. The lawsuit also noted that the 59-year-old Sim’s “glucose levels were markedly elevated in the hours preceding his death.”

The IndyStar has reported that Sim’s family and a nurse at the prison said Sim never received the medication.

Viccheat Sim requested any and all investigative documents and reports tied to his father’s death, the lawsuit states. He made that request under the Freedom of Information Act in April. He then made a revised request the following month seeking all records related to Lorth Sim while he was in ICE custody.

The federal agencies denied both requests and Sim’s subsequent appeals, noting that the records were compiled as part of an investigation into Sim’s death, the lawsuit states. But Viccheat Sim argued in the complaint that his father’s medical records were not prepared for law enforcement purposes.

The lawsuit noted that many records “were prepared prior to Mr. Sim’s death and were maintained in the ordinary course of his detention and medical care while in ICE custody.”

“The disclosure of a deceased individual’s central file, medical records, and disciplinary records to his son would have no effect on any alleged ongoing review of Mr. Sim’s death, not least because these records were all prepared in advance of, and independent from, his death,” the lawsuit states.

Lorth Sim came to the U.S. from Cambodia as a refugee and became a lawful permanent resident in the 1980s. In 2006, an immigration judge ordered his removal from the country and back to Cambodia following several convictions that included indecent exposure and larceny.

Sim was put under arrest in Boston and detained last December. He was then transferred to Miami Correctional. The prison started holding ICE detainees about a year ago, under a two-year agreement with the federal government.