A diabetic immigrant in Ice custody sued for her release. Instead, she got Covid-19
Marisol Mendoza has Covid-19. She’s short of breath, coughs and feels pain in her back and chest. She doesn’t have the energy to stand up or eat much. She’s scared she will die, alone, in an isolation cell of the immigration detention center where she’s been held for the past four years.
“Sometimes I think that Ice wants to release me when I’m dead, because they won’t do it any other way,” the 47-year-old Mexican national told the Guardian over the phone on Monday.
Mendoza was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in 2016 and is held in the Eloy detention center in central Arizona.She has type 2 diabetes and takes medication for depression.
As the Covid-19 pandemic hit the US in March, Mendoza sued Ice and CoreCivic, the private contractor that runs the facility, arguing she should be released from detention given the threat of the virus and her pre-existing health condition. Instead, in a 19 May ruling, a federal judge ordered Ice to improve her conditions and make them constitutional.
Ice did not follow all the court orders, and within two and a half weeks of the judge’s ruling, Mendoza tested positive for Covid-19.
Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases in Arizona are rising rapidly after the state opened up last month. The Eloy detention center, where Mendoza is housed, is in the midst of its own dramatic surge. Over the past weekend, active Covid-19 cases among Eloy detainees jumped from 21 to 122. At least 60 employees at the facility have tested positive for the virus, according to Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for CoreCivic, and one staff member has died from suspected complications from Covid-19.
Mendoza is one of 2,016 detainees nationwide in Ice custody who have tested positive for Covid-19. Two immigrants who contracted Covid-19 in Ice custody have already died.
Mendoza’s simultaneous fight against the virus infecting her body and legal battle against her prolonged detention underscore the perils faced by immigrants in Ice custody– and the agency’s failure to protect detainees even when courts have ordered them to take more stringent measures.
“Ms Mendoza is no longer at risk of infection. She now fears something much greater. She fears the risk of imminent death,” her attorney, Matthew Green, wrote in an emergency request arguing for her release to her family’s care in Mesa, Arizona.
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Mendoza has been living in the US for half of her life and has three daughters who are US citizens. She was detained in 2016, two years after being arrested by the Mesa police department for identity theft. Mendoza had been a manager at McDonald’s for nine years, using a false social security number along with her real name. She pleaded guilty and completed probation for the offense.
But the criminal case triggered a deportation case. For two years, Mendoza regularly checked in with Ice officials and was allowed to work. In March 2016, she was taken into custody during one of those routine appointments and sent to the Eloy detention center, where she’s been ever since. Her youngest daughter was 10 at the time.
Mendoza requested bond several times over the years but was denied each time. Immigration judges argued she posed an extreme flight risk because her previous crime disqualifies her from avoiding deportation. Mendoza’s attorneys argue the immigration judges are misinterpreting her criminal record. They say Mendoza did not plead guilty to stealing a real person’s identity, and that means her deportation could be stopped.
Her deportation case is due to be ruled on by the ninth circuit court. Before it could get there, the Covid-19 pandemic hit Arizona.
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As the coronavirus spread across the US, attorneys nationwidefiled federal lawsuits asking judges to compel Ice to free vulnerable immigrants from custody. As of 11 June, 465 immigrants have been released through federal court orders, according to Ice.
Mendoza’s was the second Arizona lawsuit filed during the pandemic in which the US district court judge Steven Logan determined Ice had “failed to take reasonable, necessary, and available measures to abate the risk of harm to high-risk detainees”, and in which he said detention conditions “amount to punishment” and violate detainees’ constitutional rights.
Logan did not order Mendoza released but required Ice to modify her conditions. He ordered she get a wellventilated cell to herself, and instructed the agency not to house her in isolation without her consent unless it was necessary for medical reasons. He also ordered Ice to provide her with soap and protective gear, deliver meals directly to her cell and screen her daily for symptoms of Covid-19. Staff and detainees should wear masks when interacting with her, the judge said.
Before Mendoza fell ill, Ice complied with some but not all of Logan’s orders, according to Mendoza and her attorney. By 28 May, eight days after the ruling, Mendoza had documented at least four instances in which detention officers did not wear masks near her. She also asserts that other detainees routinely did not wear masks.
Detention staff asked her to move into an isolated cell so officers could more efficiently comply with the judge’s order, but because she has depression, Mendoza declined.
In court filings at the end of May, Ice acknowledged it was not enforcing “100% mask use” among detainees. Disciplining detainees who refuse to wear masks would use up isolation cells that are needed for medical quarantine, the agency asserted. In the same filing, Ice blamed Mendoza for not always wearing PPE or social distancing.
When she first felt sick on 5 June, guards initially dismissed her complaints, she said. But she insisted on seeing a doctor and was ultimately tested for Covid-19 on her second day of illness.
She would have to wait for the results, however, and that evening was told she would go into an isolated unit. Her condition worsened, so she was taken to a hospital.
“They handcuffed me, arms and legs in the bed,” she said.
She was told she had a urinary tract infection and returned to detention.
When she finally had the energy to call her family, one of her daughters broke the news that her Covid-19 test was positive. The family had learned about the test result from Mendoza’s attorney.
Mendoza went back to the bed and wept. She thought it “would be better to die than to suffer this”.
An Ice spokeswoman said in a statement: “All detainees currently receive appropriate medical care as deemed necessary by the facility’s medical
professionals,” but she did not address Mendoza’s current health condition.
“In accordance with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidance, all symptomatic detainees are tested and medically isolated,” the spokeswoman, Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, added.
As recently as 21 May, the Eloy detention center warden, Fred Figueroa, insisted in court filings his Covid-19 prevention measures were “highly effective”. He said there were “zero” cases of Covid-19 in the facility, which at the time was at 77% capacity with 1,219 immigrants.
CoreCivic referred specific questions about Mendoza’s health to Ice.
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Mendoza has been in her medical isolation cell since 6 June. She said she can barely see outside her door, but she can hear the coughs of the other 11 women with Covid-19 nearby. It’s very cold in her cell, she said. Nurses check her temperature twice a day and the doctor comes maybe every three days.
On 10 June, Mendoza’s attorney filed an emergency request to the federal judge to release her to the care of her family in Mesa. “She got sick because of the inability of the Department of Homeland Security to take her seriously and to protect her,” Green told the Guardian.
In another filing on Mendoza’s behalf, Dr Robert B Greifinger warned: “The only way to protect Ms Mendoza is to release her from detention.” He said Ice was “very unlikely” to provide her sufficient care – particularly given the facility’s growing numbers of infections. Isolating her was detrimental to her mental health, Greifinger said.
New data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday showed Covid-19 patients with underlying conditions, including diabetes, are 12 times more likely to die of the virus.
On Tuesday morning, Judge Logan agreed Ice had failed to give Mendoza the level of care she needed. He said Ice had placed Mendoza in medical isolation that was “indistinguishable from solitary confinement” without considering other alternatives.
But he still insisted she had “not yet demonstrated” that she should be released. He ordered Ice to transfer Mendoza immediately to one of the two negative pressure cells within the facility and “frequently” monitor her vital signs.
If Ice failed to follow his order by Wednesday, Mendoza should be transferred to the care of her daughter Leslie Rosales, a certified medical assistant.
“She would be so much better off in our house, even if she is sick, we will take care of her. She’ll get the love she needs,” said 22-year-old Rosales.
An attorney for the government confirmed to Green that Mendoza was going to be transferred to one of the negative pressure cells on Tuesday afternoon.
But Green said he remained concerned Mendoza’s care would be “dramatically insufficient” and he said he would continue to argue for her release. Green said he was worried about the woman’s deteriorating mental health.
“The Department of Homeland Security is simply speculating that she’s going to get better,” said Green.
Mendoza on Monday told the Guardian it was getting increasingly difficult to keep up her spirits.
“I feel weak, I feel like I don’t have motivation to live, like I have nothing left to do,” she said. Then she reminded herself of her girls at home.“I know that’s not true because I have my daughters who love me and are waiting for me.”