Advocates fear for ICE detainees

Those being held can’t inform themselves about virus, prevention.

Immigrants held in U.S. detention centers have been particularly vulnerable to the spread of communicable diseases — including thousands who were put under quarantine last spring for mumps, measles, flu and other illnesses — and it is unclear whether the coronavirus could pose a serious concern for U.S. authorities and the tens of thousands of foreigners in their custody.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now detaining nearly 38,000 people in more than 130 private and state-run jails and prisons across the country, many of which sit in rural areas and operate with minimal public oversight.

Jenny Burke, an ICE spokeswoman, said Thursday that aspects of the agency’s pandemic workforce protection plan, first developed in 2014, have been in effect since January to prevent and mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus among the detainee population and staff.

She said that since the onset of reports of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, ICE epidemiologists “have been tracking the outbreak, regularly updating infection prevention and control protocols, and issuing guidance to ICE Health Service Corps staff for the screening and management of potential exposure among detainees.”

ICE officials said that as of March 3, four detainees had met the criteria for coronavirus testing, but none have tested positive. The number of confirmed cases across the United States has jumped from a few dozen to more than a thousand since then, but the agency declined to provide more recent figures for its impact on the detainee population.

Immigration advocates say they are concerned about the potentially devastating impact a coronavirus outbreak could have inside the U.S. government’s crowded immigration jails.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Human Rights Watch this week called on the Trump administration to develop a strategy to prevent and mitigate such an outbreak at facilities that have long been plagued by allegations of detainee abuse and inadequate medical care.

“People in detention are highly vulnerable to outbreaks of contagious illnesses. They are housed in close quarters and are often in poor health,” the groups wrote in a letter to ICE officials overseeing an ICE processing center in Adelanto, California.

“Without the active engagement of the detention center’s administration, they have little ability to inform themselves about preventive measures, or to take such measures if they do manage to learn of them. We are particularly concerned about the health and safety of the people detained at Adelanto, given the facility’s demonstrated failure to provide adequate medical care in the past.”

The groups sent similar letters to other ICE detention facilities, calling on ICE to educate detainees and staff about proper hygiene measures to reduce the spread of coronavirus in ICE facilities; provide sufficient supplies for handwashing and cleaning; develop plans to screen and test for the virus, as well as, contain and treat the infected; and develop staffing contingency plans for the possibility that significant numbers of ICE detention staff will fall ill from the virus.

ICE officials said the agency has 20 detention facilities run by its Health Service Corps, including 16 that are equipped with airborne infection isolation rooms, where officials said they plan to house detainees deemed at risk for COVID-19 or displaying symptoms. Officials said ICE detention staff also have received guidance on the use of protective equipment.