Virus hits 12% of migrants at Conroe site
Inside a Conroe immigrant detention center, 58 people have tested positive for COVID-19, affecting around 12 percent of the facility’s detained population, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
All 58 are under isolation or monitoring at the Montgomery Processing Center, which is operated by the for-profit prison company Geo Group.
“Since the onset of reports of COVID-19, ICE epidemiologists have been tracking the outbreak, regularly updating infection prevention and control protocols,” said an ICE spokesperson, who added that the agency “has conducted more than 11,000 COVID-19 tests at the Montgomery Processing Center since the beginning of the pandemic.”
COVID-19 numbers may include people who were sick before they were moved into ICE custody.
An additional 31 people tested positive in other ICE detention facilities in greater Houston, including 12 people at the Joe Corley Detention Center in Conroe, where one person in ICE custody died from the virus in 2020. Another man died at that facility while in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
In greater Houston’s five detention centers, 3,215 people have tested positive for the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, though based on anecdotal evidence from detainees, it’s likely that is an undercount.
Reports from advocacy groups such as the ACLU and Physicians for Human Rights have criticized ICE’s response to the pandemic, including the agency’s failure to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in facilities and adequately test detainees.
“Immigration detention cen
ters, like other congregate settings, have always been dangerous for COVID-19 transmission,” said Max Hadler, COVID-19 policy expert at Physicians for Human Rights. “While the heightened infectiousness of the omicron variant makes the risk even greater, we have seen outbreaks in immigration detention centers throughout the pandemic because of ICE’s many failures to keep detained immigrants, facility staff and surrounding communities safe.”
In a 2021 report, Physicians for Human Rights published findings from interviews with 50 immigrants who had been detained during the pandemic and found that nearly half said they didn’t have access to soap at some point during their detention — more than 80 percent didn’t have hand sanitizer provided to them.
Several people interviewed said they went untested for COVID-19 despite experiencing symptoms.
Among all Texas ICE detention centers, 532 people are currently infected with COVID-19 — the majority are in facilities closest to the U.S.-Mexico border.
ICE has reported more than 15,000 total COVID-19 cases in its detention centers in the state of Texas.
“Modeling of COVID spread with the less transmissible alpha variant at the beginning of this pandemic showed us that nearly 75 percent of the incarcerated population in ICE facilities would become sick in three months,” said Dr. Dona Kim Murphey, a Houston-based immigration advocate. “We have implored local, state and federal policymakers and executives to depopulate, and they have not heard us. What we are seeing now is the fallout.”
Since the pandemic began, ICE has decreased its detained population from 41,000 in January 2020, according to Syracuse University.
Around 22,000 people now are held in facilities nationwide.