The Department of Homeland Security inspector general will launch an investigation into Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, following an April 28 letter from more than two dozen Senate Democrats drawing attention to reports of detention staffers working closely with detained people without masks or gloves, detainees forced to go without the most basic of hygienic items, and confirmed COVID-19 cases rapidly escalating for both detainees and workers alike in these packed facilities.
“On telephonic briefings with Congressional staff, ICE claimed that it has set an occupancy threshold of 70% inside its facilities to reduce the number of detainees, but also admitted that this threshold was likely insufficient to meet CDC-recommended social distancing guidelines,” the Democratic senators wrote to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari. “Indeed, a U.S. District Judge in California recently wrote, ‘the evidence suggests system wide inaction [by ICE] that goes beyond a mere ‘difference of medical opinion or negligence.’”
At the time that the senators wrote the letter, 360 detainees, 35 ICE employees at detention facilities, and 89 ICE employees not assigned to detention facilities had tested positive for COVID-19. Since the letter, those numbers have quickly grown, with 1,145 detainees, 44 ICE employees at detention facilities, and 110 ICE employees not assigned to detention facilities testing positive as of May 19. To date, two immigrants who were detained by ICE and two contracted guards who worked at ICE facilities have died after testing positive for COVID-19.
But while ICE has every power to release greater numbers of detained people to mitigate pandemic risk, ICE has refused to do so. Senators noted at the time they wrote their letter that the agency had 32,000 in detention, a number that has decreased only slightly, to just under 28,000.
“Recently, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General initiated remote inspections of Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities to ensure they are following best practices to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus after hundreds of federal inmates tested positive for the virus,” the senators wrote. “In an effort to confront the health risks of the pandemic, some facilities have swiftly moved to decrease prison populations. ICE has even more reason and discretion than BOP to manage its population, as ICE detainees are civilly detained, and many of them are asylum seekers.”
ICE’s mishandling will now be under review by the inspector general’s office, with a final report expected by this summer, his letter said. “We are planning a review of ICE’s efforts to prevent and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in its facilities,” Cuffari told senators. “The objective of our planned review is to determine whether ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) effectively managed the crisis at its detention facilities and adequately safeguarded the health and safety of both detainees in their custody and their staff.”
People detained at the California facility where Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia had been held before his COVID-19 death criticized ICE’s mistreatment in their own letter to state officials, blaming dangerous conditions at the notorious Otay Mesa Detention Facility for his May 6 death.
“We here in M pod are furious at the blatant disregard shown for human rights here at this facility,” they wrote. “There are currently around 200 detainees sick with COVID-19 and around 40 correction officers also who have gotten sick. How many more people have to get sick? How many more people will have to die before somebody does something about this? We are all trapped in here and it is only a matter of time before everyone in this facility gets sick and before we lose another human being’s life.”