Detained immigrants at high risk for illness

COVID-19 has had us all hunkering down in our homes for the better part of a year, but what about when your home is a cell in a congregate living prison facility?

We are barely one month into the new year, but already five Connecticut inmates have died due to COVID-19 in 2021. This pandemic has been particularly insidious to those living in jails and prisons, and their health has become a focus of political debate. Are we adequately protecting and testing individuals in prison? Will they be prioritized in vaccine roll-outs? The pandemic has begun to highlight the inhumanity embedded in the United States carceral system. Not coincidentally, poor communities and communities of color are hit the hardest.

Some of the most vulnerable and ostracized in jails are noncitizens in ICE detention. As of early January, 9,099 individuals in ICE detention have tested positive for COVID-19. On average, the monthly rate of COVID-19 cases in ICE detention has been 13.4 times higher than in the general population of the United States.

While Connecticut itself does not house detained immigrants, many Connecticut families are affected because their loved ones are locked up by ICE in other New England states, and across the country.

In my experience advocating for and representing immigrant detainees, I know firsthand that not only is it incredibly difficult to communicate with detainees, but that getting them access to adequate health care is nearly impossible.

The realities faced by immigrants inside these detention centers is a world largely kept hidden from the public. In my internship at Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrants’ Rights and Advocacy Clinic this past summer, we represented a class of detained immigrants at Bristol County House of Correction — a Massachusetts prison with a detention wing housing many Connecticut detainees. These immigrants reported a lack of adequate cleaning, and little access to soap or PPE. Despite crowded conditions and mask mandates for the general population, inside the detention facility, they had no masks.

Within the jail, cots were arranged in the middle of one congregate living room without a nod to social distancing and open air. When our clients raised concerns regarding their health and safety in the context of the pandemic, they were victims of retaliation and isolated in segregation units. These are conditions that have been reported among detention centers throughout the country and are often left out of the conversation.

This country has a history of dehumanizing black and brown bodies and immigrants. Because of their circumstances, their race or the country in which they were born, mostly Latinx immigrant detainees are considered a lower priority than the white majority of this country. Their noncitizen status somehow makes them less of a part of the fabric of this country, despite the fact that one in six front-line workers, whom we have praised so consistently during this pandemic, are actually immigrants. Yet those who are locked up for entering our country are falling ill quickly and not included in conversations about how to keep our country safe from the pandemic.

Detained immigrants remain some of the most at-risk populations in the United States during this pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, lawyers and organizers on the ground level have advocated for the release of detained immigrants from ICE custody. Efforts including a class action at Bristol County House of Correction, and more recently the release of many inmates at Irwin Detention Center in Georgia — a facility bombarded by controversy as whistleblowers reported questionable gynecological procedures and dismal health conditions — has halved the population in ICE custody this past year.

Yet nearly 15,000 immigrants remain in detention. Now is the time to start the conversation about decarceration. The pandemic has clearly shown us the inhumane conditions within jails, prisons and detention facilities and we have seen that it is possible to release detainees by the thousands. So why are there still so many people remaining in custody?

This is a matter of treating humans with dignity and humanity — something which time and again has not proved itself to be a given in this country of immigrants.

The pandemic has clearly shown us the inhumane conditions within jails, prisons and detention centers.