Mother Jones reports that another immigrant has died from COVID-19 after being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Óscar López Acosta, a 42-year-old Honduran man, had been in custody for 18 months but was suddenly released from an Ohio jail on April 24, one day after officials told detainees that one of their cellmates had tested positive for COVID-19. A little more than a week later, López Acosta would also test positive after being hospitalized. Then this past Sunday, he died.
López Acosta’s death comes days after Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia died from COVID-19 after being detained at a California immigration facility that’s seen the worst novel coronavirus outbreak of any detention center in the U.S. “Ohio attorneys, immigrant advocates, and López’s widow, Lourdes Mejía Flores, believe López is the second to die after being infected in ICE custody,” Mother Jones said.
Mother Jones reported that the day after López Acosta’s hospitalization, immigration officials confirmed that 47 out of the 51 detainees held at Morrow County Jail had also tested positive for COVID-19. “It will likely be impossible to know for sure whether López contracted the virus in detention,” Mother Jones said. “ICE spokesperson Khaalid Walls told me that López was not tested before ICE released him. Through April 24, Walls added, no asymptomatic detainees at Morrow County were tested.”
But Mejía Flores said her husband was already declining following his release to their home in Dayton, “which is not a major coronavirus hot spot,” the report said. Initially experiencing no appetite after getting home, López Acosta was hospitalized after complaining to Mejía Flores that he felt like he was dying. Mother Jones reports that Mejía Flores has since developed a fever.
“Karen Bradley, whose immigration law firm represented López, said an ICE official called her on Tuesday morning to discuss López’s case,” the report continued. “She responded that López was dead. When she told the official that López got COVID-19 at the jail, he replied ‘yeah’ and didn’t refute her claim, according to Bradley.” Elizabeth Bonham, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, told Mother Jones that “This infection is on ICE’s hands.”
ICE’s database of confirmed COVID-19 cases lists 47 cases at Morrow, but that appears to exclude López Acosta, confirming previous fears from advocates that federal immigration officials are being deceptive about actual outbreak numbers. “ICE may try to hide deaths by ‘releasing’ people in comas and on ventilators at a hospital,” immigration policy expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said last month. Once ‘released,’ the death is no longer ‘in custody.’ They've done it before.”
Escobar Mejia, who died on May 6 after contracting COVID-19 in ICE custody, had been cruelly denied bond for release by the immigration courts. His sister, Rosa, slammed the inhumane conditions that only increased the pain and suffering of her brother’s final hours. “These facilities don’t care about the people or the facts of their lives,” she told The Guardian. “These are private institutions making money off of immigrants.”