This country’s harsh regime of immigration enforcement is racked with troubles from top to bottom, from the federal raids recklessly sweeping thousands of harmless immigrants into custody to the scandal-riddled detention system that abuses and neglects them once they get there.

Last week, The Times’s Nina Bernstein reported on another shameful case of someone entering immigration detention, getting sick, and dying. This time it was Hiu Lui Ng, a computer engineer from China. He paid the ultimate price for overstaying a visa, and getting lost in a sprawling system that some have likened to a gulag.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not comment because of a continuing investigation. But court affidavits tell a story of shocking neglect:

Although he complained of excruciating back pain for months, and grew ever frailer in custody, officials at the Rhode Island detention center where he was being held denied Mr. Ng an independent medical evaluation and even a wheelchair. At one point, according to the affidavits, he was shackled and taken in an ambulance for a two-hour drive to Hartford, where an immigration officer pressured him to stop appealing his case and accept deportation.

When lawyers finally persuaded a judge to insist on suitable medical treatment for Mr. Ng, the long-deferred diagnosis was dire. Prison officials had said it was all an act. It was terminal cancer  and a broken spine. Mr. Ng was taken to the hospital, and died five days later.