COVID-19 cases rise at holding site in Eloy
Migrant case flare-up among worst in nation
Immigrants detained at the La Palma Correctional Center near Eloy have become increasingly desperate as the new coronavirus outbreak at the facility has grown into to one of the biggest in the nation.
At least 76 undocumented immigrants detained at the 3,060-bed detention center had tested positive for COVID-19 as of Saturday.
That is sixth largest coronavirus outbreak at an immigration detention facility in the country, according to the most recent data released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
La Palma Correctional Center, a former prison, is run by the private for profit company CoreCivic, under a contract with ICE. The outbreak at La Palma has become increasingly concerning in light of two detainees’ recent deaths of coronavirus complications at other detention centers.
In letters written to relatives and immigration advocates, detainees at La Palma, some with medical conditions, say they are fearful of becoming infected and dying because they don’t have any way to social distance. The detainees also say detention officials are not doing enough to prevent transmission of the virus inside the facility.
“Their letters tell me that they are very concerned and they are very desperate to either get out or get medical attention,” said Jill Japan, who has been corresponding with two asylum seekers, one from Colombia and one from Cuba, currently detained at La Palma. “And they are concerned that if they get sick they won’t be attended to. They are afraid they are going to die,”
On May 24, Santiago Baten-Oxla, a 34-year-old immigrant from Guatemala, died at a hospital in Columbus, Georgia, of complications related to COVID-19. Before he was hospitalized on April 17, Baten-Oxla was being held in ICE custody at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, according to ICE officials.
On May 6, Carlos Escobar-Mejia, a 57-year-old man from El Salvador, died of COVID-19 related complications at a hospital in National City, California. Escobar-Mejia was being held in ICE custody at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, and was hospitalized with coronavirus-like symptoms, ICE said.
The Otay Mesa facility near San Diego has the biggest coronavirus outbreak at a detention center in the country. At least 158 detainees at the Otay Mesa facility have tested positive. In addition, 11 ICE employees at Otay Mesa have tested positive for the coronavirus.
On May 19, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, DN.M., announced that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general had launched an investigation
into ICE’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic inside immigration detention facilities.
“There is a long history of disease outbreaks in detention facilities and this is the first step toward ensuring that sufficient policies and practices are in place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in ICE detention,” Udall said in a statement.
The inspector general’s inquest was launched in response to a letter from Udall and 25 other Democratic senators raising concerns about reports that immigration detention centers weren’t making adequate efforts to prevent and reduce the spread of COVID-19, including not providing adequate soap and hygiene products to detainees; not providing protective gear to staff and detainees, and the inability of detainees to practice social distancing.
The advocacy group Detention Watch Network planned to hold protests on Thursday and Friday at ICE offices in New York and at detention facilities in Tacoma Washington, and Adelanto, California calling on ICE to release detainees in response to the coronavirus outbreaks.
Coronavirus outbreaks in detention centers growing
Detainees have tested positive at 55 of 220 immigration detention facilities in the country.
As of May 30, a total of 2,781 detainees had been tested for the coronavirus and 1,406 were positive, according to ICE data.
Another 44 ICE employees working at detention centers had tested positive, according to ICE data.
On May 7, 30 detainees with highrisk conditions such as asthma, diabetes, cancer and hypertension signed a letter saying they feared for their lives due to the outbreak at La Palma Correctional Center.
In the letter, the detainees call upon immigration authorities to release them because their medical conditions put them at greater risk of getting sick or dying from the virus.
“In this place, hygiene measures are not taken, we do not receive adequate medical treatment or food, and these factors make us more likely to contract the virus,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Arizona Republic.
Laura Belous, the advocacy attorney at the Florence Project, a nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to detained immigrants, said clients detained at La Palma report that they don’t have access to soap.
To clean, they resort to mixing diluted cleaning solution, shampoo, and toothpaste, she said.
“Our clients also tell us there is no possibility of social distancing in common areas, where people regularly eat at 4-person tables within reach of one another,” she said in an email. “Most of the clients I have talked to say they still have a cellmate and cannot maintain 6foot separation while they sleep or during the many hours per day that they are locked inside while the facility counts detainees.”
She said clients also say they and others “do not trust the facility to be transparent, tell the truth, and provide adequate protection and care, which is extremely worrying for us.”
On April 1, the Florence Project filed a petition in federal court asking a judge to release five immigrants being held at La Palma and three being held at the nearby Eloy Detention Center “so their civil detention does not become a death sentence.”
The petition said their medical conditions, ranging from HIV positive, asthma, diabetes and hypertension, put them at greater risk of severe illness or death if they contracted the virus.
“Infectious disease specialists warn that no conditions of confinement in (prison) settings can adequately manage the serious risk of harm for medically vulnerable individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the petition said.
It added that detainees “live in dorms and sleep in bunk beds, sharing common spaces and medical facilities with hundreds of other detainees. They are forced to share necessities like showers, telephones, toilets, and sinks with dozens of others. They are in the constant presence of officers and staff who continually rotate in and out of the facility, each time risking transmission of the virus to those inside and outside the detention center.”
ICE has since released seven of the eight detainees named in the petition, Belous said.
Former prisons run by private companies detaining immigrants
The La Palma Correction Center is an example of how the Trump administration has opened detention centers in rural areas around the country to detain more undocumented immigrants, said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberty Union’s National Prison Project.
The expansion largely benefited private prison companies, helping them shore up revenues as criminal justice reforms resulted in fewer numbers of inmates, according to an April report by the ACLU.
“As reforms to the criminal legal system have reduced the number of prisoners held in that system nationwide, prison corporations have found a new source of income: immigrants,” the report said.
La Palma originally housed about 2,500 inmates from California Department of Corrections sent to Arizona because of overcrowded prisons in California. But California eliminated the use of out-of-state prisons in response to criminal justice reforms adopted in the last decade and stopped sending prisoners to La Palma.
In 2018, however, CoreCivic received a new contract with ICE to detain undocumented immigrants at La Palma.
Of the 20 new immigration detention facilities opened under the Trump administration, most of them former prisons, La Palma is the largest, according to the ACLU report.
“It is too easy for these private prison companies to cut corners and the impact of that is what we are seeing here, which is mass spread of COVID-19,” Cho
said.
ICE officials did not directly respond to questions about the coronavirus outbreak at La Palma asking to explain the number of detainees who have been infected there.
There have been no positive coronavirus cases reported so far at the Eloy Detention Center, also run by CoreCivic. There have been 11 positive cases at the ICE-operated Florence Processing Center, an immigration detention center in Florence.
In a written statement, Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, an ICE spokeswoman in Phoenix, said ICE “is committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency’s custody.”
She pointed out that the list of positive cases is cumulative. Some detainees may no longer be in ICE custody, and some may have since tested negative for the virus, she said.
The agency works with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal, state and local agencies to confront the coronavirus and help detect and slow the spread of the virus. The agency’s Health Service Corps has longestablished protocols to report any infectious disease outbreaks to the appropriate state agency, the statement said.
The agency has also been reviewing cases of detainees deemed to be at higher risk of severe illness due to the virus and releasing some detainees on a caseby-case basis, she said.
ICE also notifies local public health agencies when ill or isolated detainees are ordered released by a judge, she said.
ICE has released more than 900 detainees after evaluating medical issues, and other factors after conducting reviews of 34,000 cases of detainees who fell within CDC guidelines for higher risk of severe illness as a result of COVID-19, ICE officials have said.
Some of those releases have come after the ACLU and partner organizations have filed more than 50 lawsuits on behalf of medically vulnerable detainees.
ICE’s detained population has also declined from 38,537 as of Feb. 29 down to 28,865 as of May 2, officials have said.
CoreCivic responds
Amanda Gilchrist, public affairs director at CoreCivic, the Nashville-based company that runs the La Palma detention center under contract with ICE, refuted claims by detainees of inadequate response to the coronavirus outbreak.
She said the La Palma staff has expanded their response to the coronavirus outbreak and listed the steps that have been taken, including conducting daily temperature checks of all detainees, keeping detainees informed about proper sanitation protocols, personal protective equipment, safe dining practices, social distancing recommendations and recreational opportunities.
Staff have also limited movement around the facility, with the exception of court hearings or medical emergencies, Gilchrist said in a statement.
Detainees who have tested positive for COVID-19 are housed in separate pods.
Meals are now being served in housing pods rather than the dining facility to enhance social distancing. Masks have been provided to all staff and detainees in accordance with updated CDC recommendations, Gilchrist said.
The claim that detainees do not receive adequate nutrition is false, she said
“All detainees are provided three meals per day that are reviewed and approved by a registered dietitian and by our government partner (PBNDS). Commissary items are also available to all detainees,” Gilchrist said.
In addition, she said high-risk medical detainees have been separated since March 20 before any positive cases at La Palma. Staff entering those areas are required to wear full personal protective equipment, Gilchrist said.
At the direction of ICE, all social visitation has been suspended since March 13, Gilchrist said.
Detainees who display symptoms of COVID-19 are immediately transferred to the medical unit wearing full personal protective equipment and then placed in medical isolation pending an assessment and testing, Gilchrist said.
Employees are also being asked to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including by avoiding close contact with people who are sick, avoiding touching eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands, and staying home when sick, Gilchrist said.
All employees and approved visitors and vendors are screened upon entering a CoreCivic facility, she said, and follow procedures designed to prevent the introduction and spread of the COVID-19 virus. These steps include answering a screening questionnaire related to symptoms of infection, and a safe temperature check, she said.
Gilchrist also refuted claims by the ACLU that the COVID-19 outbreaks are the result of private prison companies such as CoreCivic cutting corners to maximize profits.
The claims, she said, “are baseless and ignore the high-quality services CoreCivic provides. We have every incentive to provide outstanding service to our government partners, just as any other private business must meet and exceed the expectations of their clients. The fact that we’ve been working with the government for more than three decades is a testament to professional standards we meet every day.
Detention Centers with most COVID-19 detainee cases:
Otay Mesa Detention Center (San
Diego, California), 158
Bluebonnet Detention Facility (Anson, Texas), 132
Winn Correctional Center (Winnfield, Louisiana), 116
Otero County Processing Center (Chaparral, New Mexico), 92
Houston Contract Detention Facility (Houston), 78
La Palma Correctional Facility (Eloy), 76