A death in custody: Homeland Security officials investigate treatment of novelist Edwidge Danticat's late uncle, who died seeking asylum.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have been investigating the death of author Edwidge Danticat's elderly uncle who fled Haiti with a valid U.S. visa, only to be detained and denied his own prescribed medication.

This past October, the Reverend Joseph Dantica sought political asylum in Miami, but the popular Baptist minister died handcuffed to a hospital bed on November 3, five days after federal authorities confiscated his medicine, dismissing them as illegitimate and "voodoo-like." [The uncle's last name was spelled differently than Danticat's father's and immediate family because of a clerical error.] Homeland Security officials have denied any wrongdoing,

Immigration officials had denied his niece--who lives in Miami and New York--the chance to visit her uncle on his deathbed, citing security concerns. "I think it's shameful and disgraceful the way he was treated;' said Danticat, 36, who was raised by Dantica until the age of 12, when she was reunited with her parents in the United States. "An 81 year-old man, he was incarcerated. Then he was left to die shackled to a bed in a hospital room where his loved ones were not even allowed to see him. And this country considers itself the greatest democracy in the world?"

It is a tragic story akin to the heart-breaking tales Danticat herself has weaved. Danticat is the author of Breath, Eyes, Memory (Soho Press, 1998), an Oprah Book Club selection; Krik? Krak! (Soho Press, 1995), a National Book Award finalist; The Farming of Bones (Penguin, 1999), winner of an American Book Award; and The Dew Breaker (Knopf, 2004; see BIBR, July-August 2004, "Haiti's Eloquent Daughter").

Since former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was removed from power and escorted out of the country last year, Haiti has been in deep turmoil.

Dantica fled the country on October 29, after a mob turned on him and his son, Maxo Osnac Dantica. Thugs burned down his church and school, Church of the Redeemer, and seized his home in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Bel-Air.

The area had been rife with violence as armed loyalists battled United Nations troops and the Haitian police on October 24. During Sunday services, police chased gang members into Dantica's church, killing one as he attempted to escape. At least 15 others were also killed that day.

Once troops left the area, a mob confronted the pastor and his son, demanding that they pay for the funerals of the dead or face beheading. Unable to secure the money, Dantica snuck out of his house and sought refuge at a neighbor's. He crossed rooftops and hid under a bed for three days, relatives said. Dantica sought refuge at Miami International Airport. Instead, he was placed in shackles and hauled off to jail. "The tragic irony is that Rev. Dantica came because he wanted to save his life and then ended up losing it while in U.S. government custody," said Maxo Dantica's attorney, Cheryl Little, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.

Dantica's relatives, some public officials and a growing chorus of writers (including Walter Mosley and James McBride) have decried the elderly pastor's death.

"It is really an upsetting case," said Anna Kushner, a spokeswoman at PEN, a writers' organization that has been monitoring the case. "It's just another indication that some of the policies and legislation that were enacted weren't really thought through."

Homeland Security officials have maintained that Dantica died of a pre-existing medical condition, pancreatis, that was cited in an autopsy report performed by the Miami-Dade County medical examiner. Danticat said she did not know her uncle had pancreatis, only that he had battled cancer of the larynx that was in remission. He also took prescribed drugs and herbal remedies for his high blood pressure and prostate condition.

John Pratt, the attorney who was representing the pastor, said immigration officials told him that the pastor was given an "equivalent" medicine to treat his ailments, something Dantica at the time had denied.

"He told me, 'They didn't give me my medicine,'" said Pratt, who witnessed Dantica vomiting and passing out during his asylum interview with immigration authorities. Pratt said medial staff called in to treat Dantica suggested that Dantica was faking his illness. "This could have all been avoided," Pratt said. "They could have exercised more humanity."

Edwidge Danticat said the U.S. government is getting away with countless abuses directed toward foreigners--here and abroad--under the veil of protecting the homeland. "If we can't tell an old man who'd just lost everything and was seeking some shelter, if we can't tell that old man apart from a terrorist, how safe are we anyway?" Danticat said.

Leslie Casimir is the immigration reporter at the New York Daily News.