“O.M.G.,” a pregnant asylum-seeker named in the new lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking the immediate release of families from a number of migrant family jails due to the coronavirus public health crisis, said she’s living in daily fear. “I am a plaintiff in this case because I fear that I will contract the coronavirus while detained,” she said in a sworn declaration. “I fear me, my daughter, and my unborn fetus will die if we become sick in detention.”
The family, originally from Honduras, have been detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center for nearly two months now, where she says detainees lack increased access to soap or hand sanitizer and share everything from sleeping quarters to bathrooms. “I fear the Corona virus will spread quickly in this jail if one person is infected,” she continues. “I fear for my life, and the life of my daughter and unborn child, if we remain detained. I believe our safety requires our release.”
Advocacy groups Rapid Defense Network, ALDEA—The People’s Justice Center, and RAICES seek the freedom of women, men, and kids detained at three notorious facilities, including the privately run South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, where a man died by suicide this month. This current pandemic, the groups say, has worsened their detention by creating “a dangerous situation that imminently threatens their lives, the lives of those in the surrounding communities, and the general public should a COVID-19 crisis spark within family detention.”
“C.L.,” a Haitian asylum-seeker who is also being jailed at Dilley, said officials have taken no steps to protect them from the virus. “My son and I are in a room with about nine other people. We sleep very close together, and there is very little space to maintain distance from other people when we are in the room. When I am laying down in my bed, I can touch the bed next to me. My son has a cough and other people in our room also have a cough. They have never quarantined the people who have a cough,” she explained in the lawsuit.
“I haven’t seen anyone with a face mask or with gloves,” she continued. “Even people that are coughing are not given face masks. When I was at the medical clinic here last week, I saw some doctors meet with patients without face masks.” Yet ICE is forcing attorneys who want to visit their clients at other facilities to find face masks amid a mass shortage. “This requirement will make it impossible for lawyers to represent their clients unless they rob health care providers who are working to save the lives of thousands of patients of desperately needed equipment,” said Jeremy McKinney of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Laila Ayub, an attorney with RAICES, said in a sworn declaration that clients at Karnes County Residential Center in Texas told her they were led into rooms to sign forms about coronavirus, but that it “seemed like a way for staff to put on a facade of having explained coronavirus and taken the necessary precautions, but they did not actually explain it to them.” When Ayub visited the facility, she said staff didn’t ask her to wash her hands or give her any gloves. Staffers themselves weren’t wearing gloves or washing their hands either, she said.
“I believe that if my family was able to be released and continue my case outside of detention, we would have a better chance of staying healthy,” Haitian dad “R.P.” said in the lawsuit. “The doctors here are already not able to protect us. The doctors say they are already busy and they are frequently unable to take care of our current needs. My wife, for example, is sick and has ovarian cysts. She is in lots of pain and has gone to the doctors here many times but has been told treatment is not available. She has not had her period in over 5 months.”
But ICE just doesn’t care, and this ongoing refusal to release even the most vulnerable populations could cost lives. “There is no vaccine and no treatment for COVID-19. We only have prevention as a tool to stop the pandemic,” Dr. Julie DeAun Graves said in the lawsuit. “If we don’t move people out of congregate settings, most of them plus the staff who work with them will become infected, and many will die or have permanent disability.”
