Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Ed Markey has called on the Department of Homeland Security to take urgent action to help stop acceleration of the coronavirus crisis, including halting “needless deportations” and releasing a number of immigrants from detention centers, where advocates have said dangerous and inhumane conditions are turning vulnerable people in particular into “sitting ducks.”
“We are facing a global pandemic,” the senator said. “As all of us in Massachusetts and across the United States begin to understand how to live under the grip of the coronavirus, we have a responsibility as a nation to stop the spread of this disease on a global scale. That’s why I am calling on the Trump administration to halt deportations and release from detention all immigrants who pose no public safety threat.”
“Our families and communities are facing unparalleled fear and anxiety,” Markey writes in a post published on Medium. “The United States has a moral obligation to lead with love and compassion. It is time to dig into the heart of our nation and find its conscience. In times as turbulent as these, halting deportations and releasing detainees from custody is just the right thing to do.” Keeping immigrants detained during this crisis, he continues, “has already been called a public health disaster waiting to happen.”
“I traveled to the border and witnessed the humanitarian crisis created by the Trump administration. I saw firsthand the inhumane conditions in which immigrants are being forced to live,” he said. “Between the crowded rooms and the substandard medical care, if the virus were to reach these detention centers, it is sure to spread like wildfire. It is time for ICE to release people in custody and find alternatives to detention that would limit exposure to the virus.”
Proven alternatives exist: an Obama-era program that connected asylum-seekers with social workers saw a 99% success rate in terms of ICE check-ins and immigration court appearances. The Atlantic reported in 2017 that an official “even noted that ‘families have thrived” under the relaxed conditions.” The Trump administration, however, terminated the program that year, citing a $12 million savings. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the over $100 million taxpayers have shelled out so that the impeached president can go golfing.
Advocates have already been calling on ICE to release detainees, which the agency has every power to do. “Most of the nearly 40,000 people in ICE detention are there not because the law requires it, but because the agency has dramatically curtailed parole under President Donald Trump,” Reveal reported. Vanessa Merton of the Immigration Justice Clinic at the Pace University law school in New York told Reveal that “Other countries do not find it necessary to detain huge numbers of potential immigration violators … By definition, if you’re in ICE detention, you’re not being held in criminal custody.”
Under pressure, the Trump administration has already halted some immigration court hearings and shuttered some immigration courthouses around the country, but more must be done, and soon, in the name of saving lives. “Unfortunately, the spread of coronavirus is going to continue to worsen before it gets better,” Markey concluded. “The United States has a responsibility to do all that it can to halt the spread of this virus. We must immediately halt needless deportations and release detainees.”