A 33-year-old Mexican immigrant seeking refuge in the U.S. was so severely injured from a fall while in detention that he can’t feel his legs and now uses a wheelchair, his El Paso attorney says.

But Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the man had a thorough medical evaluation and there was “no known justification” for his being unable to walk.

Attorney Linda Corchado sought and was denied the humanitarian release of her client. She now plans to seek his freedom through a writ of habeas corpus, which if granted would compel authorities to bring the migrant to the judge to consider his release. She wants him to get an independent medical evaluation.

“I’ve never had a case this bad before,” said Corchado, legal services director at the nonprofit Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso. “The mistakes made are just insane.”

The unauthorized immigrant, who asked that his name be withheld because he previously gave U.S. authorities information about drug cartels and fears for his life, was on his way to Fort Worth, where relatives live, when he was detained by federal authorities more than 10 months ago.

The immigrant was charged with unlawful re-entry, a nonviolent felony, and false use of a U.S. passport. He was injured in June at the El Paso county jail while serving his sentence in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. The service, which oversees detainees in the El Paso County jail, said it could not discuss the case due to privacy and security reasons.

The immigrant is now in civil detention as he seeks protection under asylum laws.

His injuries while in federal custody at the county lockup come as a congressional oversight committee opened an investigation into medical abuse of immigrants in government detention this past December. The House Oversight and Reform Committee issued letters demanding documents from the Department of Homeland Security shortly after a BuzzFeed investigation documented significant abuses reported by a whistleblower about the U.S. immigration detention system.

Corchado, whose brother Alfredo Corchado is a Dallas Morning News reporter covering the border and Mexico, said she believes her client was given the wrong medicine after an identification bracelet belonging to another inmate was placed on his wrist while detained at the El Paso jail. Medical records reviewed by The News say he became dizzy and fell on June 2. Legal records say he fell from a bunk bed, and his attorney says it was the top bunk.

“He said that right after the fall, when he started becoming conscious, they kept calling him by another name,” Linda Corchado said. “And so he was extremely confused. And he said, ‘That’s not my name.’”

Her client was hospitalized after the fall. A medical scan found he had bulging discs in his lower back.

The man told an asylum office that in September, while being held at the West Texas detention center in Sierra Blanca, he was taken to an emergency room after he fell again. He told Corchado it was not until he fell a fifth time that he was taken to a hospital, she said. Meanwhile, he told the attorney that he had been crawling, using his arms. He had been given crutches but couldn’t use them because of his deteriorated condition, his attorney said.

In November, the man was given a wheelchair when he was transferred to a third detention center. ICE said the immigrant came into its custody in a wheelchair on Nov. 26. While in the U.S. Marshals custody, he at one time was getting 2,400 mgs of Ibuprofen per day, as well as Gabapentin, a medicine used to control nerve pain.

In early December, ICE said in a statement, the immigrant underwent “a thorough medical evaluation, during which he stated that he did not want to walk and would only use the wheelchair to ambulate. A review of his medical records indicated that he had undergone an extensive neurological/muscular work-up with a finding of mild disc bulge. Also noting there was no known justification for his being unable to walk.”

The day after Christmas, a physician evaluated the man further and canceled the order for a neurology consult. ICE wouldn't elaborate as to why the consultation was canceled except to say a physician evaluated the immigrant and said his pain was controlled.

The man is now at a fourth lockup, the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, N.M., a half hour from El Paso. Corchado said he has been in medical isolation, although he isn’t contagious.

Corchado took his case in early February. Immigrants are frequently unrepresented by lawyers and are frequently moved among a variety of detention centers, from county jails to privately run lockups to facilities owned and operated by ICE. About 39,000 immigrants, mostly in the U.S. unlawfully, are now detained in facilities around the nation.

Notes from an asylum officer’s interview of the immigrant, reviewed by The News, allege that the man said detention officers told him if he kept complaining about his condition and treatment “things would get worse” for him.

When asked about that, ICE said it “takes very seriously all allegations of employee misconduct. As public servants working for a law enforcement agency, ICE employees are held to the highest professional and ethical conduct. Incidents of misconduct are treated with the utmost seriousness and investigated thoroughly."

The man had previously passed a crucial “reasonable fear” interview by federal officials which is necessary when an immigrant wishes to proceed with an asylumlike claim, based on his detailed testimony that he was kidnapped and would be persecuted in Mexico because of what he knew about cartel activity.

“The fact that he passed that is very telling,” said Katie Shepherd, the national advocacy counsel with the immigration justice campaign of the American Immigration Council who specializes in asylum cases. “It indicates that the threat he faces upon return [to Mexico] is real.”

Earlier, Corchado successfully sought a stay of the immigrant’s deportation through an emergency filing in immigration court. Were a judge to release him, he would stay with his Fort Worth family, who have legal permanent residency and would give him “the special care he deserves” while Corchado pursues an asylum case, Corchado said.

Corchado said her client is depressed. “All the shock and trauma my client has already sustained in Mexico has only been exacerbated by having been paralyzed during his detention. Moreover, he was placed into solitary confinement since then for ‘medical observation,’ which has exacerbated his mental health,” that filing says. The filing adds that it is unlawful to punish him for being disabled.

Another legal nonprofit specializing in the rights of the disabled in government custody has assisted in the case. The Denver-based Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center wrote ICE, as well, that placing the Mexican immigrant in medical segregation on the sole basis of his disability was punitive and excessive. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits disability discrimination, reads the letter from a lawyer with the Denver legal group.

The filing seeking his release said that the immigrant saw members of the La Linea drug cartel in Otero County and El Paso detention. La Linea operates in northern Mexico, including the Ciudad Juarez region across the border from El Paso.

“He has disclosed information about the operations of La Linea and their cooperation with Mexican officials, and he fears he will pay the price for it,” Corchado said.

The motion to stop his deportation alleged that the immigrant suffered past persecution when he was kidnapped by members of La Linea and witnessed them working with the Mexican police.

“He testified that during his kidnapping, uniformed police officers would enter the home where he was being held against his will and where he saw a man was gruesomely murdered in front of him,” the filing said. “The police would then enter this home where murders were taking place and where my client was being held against his will and would ask, ‘How is everything,’ and members of La Linea would respond, ‘Everything is fine, boss.’”