A 17-year-old immigrant detained at the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement had hoped he would be spared from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention and released to a Texas shelter when he turned 18. Isaac told The New York Times he has high blood pressure and severe anxiety, but he was still shipped off to an ICE processing center in El Paso in the thick of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. “I have no doctor. I have medication but it is one given to me in the previous shelter, when I was a minor,” Isaac told The New York Times. He wishes to be identified by his middle name to ensure he is not retaliated against.
A study released Monday found that 72% of immigrants in detention facilities are expected to be infected with COVID-19 by their 90th day in ICE detention, and that's an optimistic outcome according to the nonprofit Government Accountability Project. The percentage increases to nearly 100% in a worst-case scenario. Isaac migrated from Guatemala nearly eight months ago.
“The public health implications of this study are critical,” experts concluded. “They suggest that decisive action on the part of ICE will not only reduce morbidity and mortality outcomes in its population of detained immigrants, but minimize negative health outcomes in the communities that support ICE’s detention facilities with health care resources.”
The study uses research from experts at Brown University, Brandeis University, George Mason University, the University of British Columbia, and the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute. “Keeping immigrants in detention is exacerbating what is already a public health crisis, which is why our interdisciplinary team of researchers recommends prompt widespread release of immigrants from these dangerous environments,” Dr. Traci Green said. She works as an epidemiologist at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
Of the almost 31,000 immigrants in ICE detention, 360 detainees tested positive for the novel coronavirus as of Monday night, according to The Dallas Morning News. “I don’t feel good. I was coughing all night,” Luis Buitrago, a Texas detainee from Columbia, told the newspaper. “You are infected with corona and you think no one cares about you. I am getting crazy in here. There is a guy here who says he is going to kill himself.”
Felix Villalobos, an immigration attorney with a Texas nonprofit, said there have been lawsuits around the country regarding how detainees are treated during the coronavirus pandemic. "ICE isn’t really good about taking care of people’s medical needs,” he told The Dallas Morning News.
Several relatives of those detained at Prairieland Detention Center, a facility about 40 miles southwest of Dallas, suspect detainees transferred to the center from Pennsylvania have spread the virus to the Texas facility’s population, The Dallas Morning News reported. Other detainees reported a lack of soap and masks for facility employees.
An unnamed ICE spokeswoman the newspaper interviewed said detainees who “meet CDC criteria for epidemiological risk” of coming into contact with the virus are separated from general population. She also said before detainees were transferred from Pennsylvania, they were “screened for COVID-19.” She didn’t say whether that screening included actual COVID-19 testing, The Dallas Morning News reported. “ICE transports individuals with moderate to severe symptoms, or those who require higher levels of care or monitoring, to appropriate hospitals with expertise in high-risk care,” she told The Dallas Morning News.
Margarita Carcamo, the sister of a detainee at Prairieland, mentioned reports from her brother that few people wore masks at the facility. “He says he kept hearing guards complaining and saying, ‘Why did they bring people who were infected?’” Carcamo told The Dallas Morning News.
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Frania Blandon, whose husband was sent to the Prairieland facility about two months ago, said she is worried because he has a fever and is depressed. “Their crime is that they want a better future,” Blandon told The Dallas Morning News. “They are humans. Just because they are infected with coronavirus is not their fault.”