DETAINEES
GPS monitoring through an electronic ankle bracelet.
The judge’s decision came about a week after Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman filed a 69-page recommendation to her stating that ICE needed to “substantially” reduce detainee populations as COVID-19 positive cases continue to climb behind bars, but that the court does not have the authority to issue such an order.
His recommendation was submitted in response to a lawsuit filed by immigration advocates seeking the release of about 1,200 detainees from the Krome Processing Center in Miami-Dade, the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach and the Glades County detention center in Moore Haven.
Instead of releasing detainees en masse, Goodman said ICE should have to submit twice-weekly reports to the court detailing the number of detainees who were released from each facility.
He also said a “neutral, court-appointed expert” should inspect the three centers. The independent monitor would file a report with opinions on the number of detainees who would need to be released in order “to achieve the most amount of social distancing possible.” They would also file a report on whether
ICE is following its own “pandemic response” protocols in accordance with CDC guidelines.
ICE quickly objected to Goodman’s recommendation saying that the court has no authority over how the government chooses to detain and release immigration detainees, and that filing twice-weekly accountability reports to the court would be “unduly burdensome.”
“The report’s directives as to how ICE is to exercise its detention authority exceeds this court’s jurisdiction to adjudicate cases and controversies,” ICE attorneys said. “There is no basis for this court’s oversight of ICE’s administration of its sound policies.”
But the petitioners in the case — lawyers for the University of Miami’s immigration-law clinic, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Rapid Defense Network in New York, Americans for Immigrant Justice, the Legal Aid Service of Broward County, Miami law firm Prada
Urizar and King & Spalding, an international firm based in Washington, D.C. — said Goodman “misunderstood the nature of the lawsuit” and “underestimated the court’s authority” in protecting detainees’ lives, describing his recommendations to ICE as “far too modest.”
They urged Judge Cooke to rule in their favor, saying she does have the authority to order the release of ICE detainees because other federal judges around the country have already done it.
They cited a federal court decision made as recently as April 23, when the District Court for the Central District of California considered a nearly identical case and ordered ICE to immediately release detained individuals “so that remaining detained individuals could follow CDC guidelines for social distancing.”
“Indeed, federal judges across the country have ordered the urgent release of numerous immigrants because of the pressing health risks created by ICE detention and other types of imprisonment,” the petitioners wrote. “The court should do the same here.” who received the drug recovered quicker and died at a lower rate.
In South Florida, the drug has been used, under conditions set by the company, for six patients at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach and nine patients at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood.
Jackson Health System, Miami’s public hospital, said it was recently approved for the program but hasn’t received the medication yet. The drug is also being used at other Florida hospitals, including Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
The patients must be on ventilators and meet certain criteria, such as not having serious additional diseases. They are then given a 10-day course of intravenous remdesivir and monitored by daily laboratory tests, X-rays and other measures.
Of the nine patients to receive the treatment at Memorial, one has been discharged. Three others have been taken off ventilators and are recovering. The remaining five are on ventilators and are ill with “varying degrees of severity,” according to Dr. Candi Sareli, chief medical research officer at Memorial Healthcare System.
“The outcomes are purely observational,” Sareli cautioned.
But the NIH study, a randomized clinical trial of more than 1,000 patients throughout the country as well as Europe and Asia, found that patients who were treated with the drug recovered about 31% faster than those who didn’t receive it. Patients who got the antiviral had a median recovery period of 11 days, compared to 15 days for those who received a placebo.
The study, which has not yet undergone peer review, also showed a small drop in mortality rates — 8% for those who got remdesivir compared to 12% for those who didn’t.
The results make remdesivir the first COVID-19 treatment scientifically proven to be effective, a distinction celebrated by Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key White House coronavirus adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus,” Fauci said, according to The Associated Press. “This will be the standard of care.”
Dr. Richard Sutton, an infectious-disease specialist and Yale School of Medicine professor, said it’s difficult to separate hype from reality in assessing early results from experimental treatments, but there is now real science showing that remdesivir can stop the virus from replicating.
Remdesivir works by targeting the virus itself, rather than fortifying the body’s own host proteins to protect against the virus, Sutton said, noting that Gilead is “one of the best in the world in terms of drug development. They know what they’re doing.”
But while Sutton was optimistic the drug could have some effect, he also cautioned that it has to be studied more.
“It’s encouraging,” Sutton said. “We’ll have to see what the real data looks like.”
At Mount Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Seth Gottlieb, the chief of pulmonary medicine, said the hospital is on its ninth day of treating patients with the drug. He said it was still too early to comment on outcomes, but the preliminary results appeared promising.
“But that’s a very cautious statement, because we’re going along with this very early on,” he said.
At Sarasota Memorial Hospital, eight patients are receiving the treatment, but hospital officials said it was too early to assess the results, especially because the drug was being used on people who already required mechanical ventilation.
“We are seeing positive indications in the trial and are hopeful that this treatment, along with other therapies we are researching, will be effective,” Kirk Voelker, a critical-care pulmonologist at the hospital, said in a press release.
Both Gottlieb and Sareli said they welcomed a new tool to combat the virus.
“In this particular time, with what’s going on and the awful nature of this disease, getting some actual proof that something may be working using the scientific method is important to us now,” Gottlieb said.
Sareli, of Memorial, said she first used the drug on other patients under emergency-use authorization, but Gilead stopped that supply to focus on randomized clinical trials. Those initial patients are still being monitored.
Remdesivir gives doctors something important, Sareli said: another option for patients and family members who are desperate to find any way they can help their loved ones.
“This is a particularly difficult disease because the families are not at the bedside,” she said. “The fact that you can offer them a research study gives them at least a little bit of hope.”