CBSA officer tells inquest more changes needed to prevent in-custody suicides

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BURNABY (NEWS1130) – A veteran officer for Canada’s border agency says changes have been made since a Mexican woman killed herself while in federal custody.

Randy Lewis told a coroner’s jury examining the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez that frontline workers have now been given mental health and suicide prevention training to help notice possible red flags.

Lewis admits he doesn’t see any easy solutions to preventing similar deaths.

He testified that if money was no object he’d like a separate place to hold people being deported from BC, similar to facilities in Toronto and Montreal, instead detainees must continue to be held alongside convicted criminals.

While other immigration detainees have attempted suicide in recent years, Lewis told the inquest that it wasn’t until after Jimenez’s death that the CBSA revamped procedures, including how its contracted private security guards do their work.

Jimenez was arrested in December 2013 after being stopped for transit fare evasion and it was discovered she had already been deported from Canada over a failed refugee claim.

The 42-year-old hotel worker was found hanging inside a shower stall at the underground Vancouver airport holding cells being watched by Genesis Security, she died days later in hospital.

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