United States: Covid-19 and Detention

A still from surveillance footage included in a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report from March about pandemic-era violations of detention standards at the La Palma immigration detention center in Arizona. The people being pepper sprayed had been peacefully protesting to demand better protection from COVID-19: N. Lanard, "ICE Allowed COVID-19 Breakouts and Concealed Hospitalizations, A New Report Shows," Mother Jones, 11 May 2021, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/ice-allowed-covid-19-breakouts-and-concealed-hospitalizations-new-report-shows/

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a hard-hitting report on the mistreatment of detainees at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centres since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the details of more than 40 lawsuits filed by the ACLU on behalf of detainees, the report, titled “The Survivors: Stories of People Released from ICE Detention During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” documents “ICE’s failure to protect people in detention as well as demonstrable lies and misrepresentations over the course of litigation, including in sworn declarations to the court. It also makes recommendations to the administration and highlights the stories of 19 people who were detained during the pandemic and released as a result of litigation.”

The ACLU report was released as numerous other investigations began appearing concerning ICE’s failure to address the pandemic in its detention centres and the growing COVID-19 crisis spreading across the U.S. immigration detention system, where the rate of infection far exceeds that of the rest of the United States. One notable report was the New York Times April 2021 video report, “How ICE’s Mishandling of COVID-19 Fueled Outbreaks Around the Country,” which details how infections in detention centres spread to surrounding communities and concludes that ICE could have released many more detainees to help limit the spread of the disease. According to the Times, the infection rates at U.S. immigration detention centres is 20 times higher than the general population and five times higher than in prisons.

Mother Jones magazine reported (11 May 2021): “According to ICE’s own statistics, 14,057 people have tested positive for COVID-19 while in the agency’s custody. As of Sunday [9 May 2021], a staggering 1,906 of the roughly 16,700 people in detention right now are being monitored for active COVID-19 infections. If the United States had a similar infection rate, there’d be nearly 40 million active infections at the moment, as opposed to the roughly 560,000 that have been recorded over the past two weeks.”

However, ICE’s statistics may not relate the full, staggering scope of the COVID catastrophe in the U.S. immigration detention system. In one case featured in the ACLU report, a detainee at ICE’s Adelanto Detention Centre in California, named Martine Vargas Arellano, was released by ICE just days before he died. By releasing Arellano—who, in addition to contracting COVID at Adelanto, suffered from schizophrenia, diabetes, and hepatitis—before he died, ICE avoided the mandatory requirement to report all “in-custody deaths.” Opined the ACLU: “ICE’s practice of releasing detained people from custody when they are hospitalized and near death is of particular concern, given that ICE has refused to publicly release information and statistics regarding the number of people who have been hospitalized for COVID-19 during the pandemic. This practice raises serious concerns as to the accuracy and validity of ICE’s statistics regarding the number of deaths that have occurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in detention.”

Press reports have also revealed that ICE has in some cases released COVID-positive detainees without providing medical information to local communities or others. According to the Washington Post (15 March 2021), officials and advocates in the border town of Calexico, California, began documenting early this year how ICE repeatedly dropped off detainees at the town’s bus station, having previously notified volunteers of the drop-offs but failing to provide details about the detainees’ medical conditions. Reported the Post: “In a border area that has suffered from ongoing coronavirus outbreaks, advocates for immigrants and ICE are at odds over the agency’s treatment of detainees with the coronavirus. Advocates and county officials say they had no idea ICE was dropping off infected detainees at the bus stop; ICE says it is the agency’s protocol to notify local authorities ahead of time. While the advocates agree that detainees with the coronavirus should be released from detention so they can seek better medical care, not coordinating those transfers with health officials and nonprofits is a danger to public health, they said.”

Commenting on this practice, Jules Kramer of the Minority Humanitarian Foundation told the Post: “It’s reprehensible. It’s a threat to public safety. It’s a threat to our asylum seekers. It’s a threat to the people on the ground helping. It’s absolutely unforgivable.”

The U.S. immigration detainee population fell dramatically during the first months of the pandemic. According to ICE’s Fiscal Year 2020 (October 2109-September 2020) report, ICE “reduced its detained population to 75 percent or below in all facilities and 70 percent or below in ICE dedicated facilities.” ICE also reports widespread testing of detainees: “As of the end of FY 2020, ICE ERO had tested more than 40,000 detainees, and had initiated testing for all new intakes at 74 facilities nationwide.”

As of 11 May 2021, ICE had recorded a total 14,094 positive cases among its detainee population.

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