United States: Covid-19 and Detention

Government Officials Wearing Protective Masks Stand Next to a Plane Carrying Migrants Deported from the US at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala, (12 March 2020, CNN, "The US Deported Him. Days Later, he was Hospitalised with Coronavirus," https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/americas/immigration-guatemala-deportee-coronavirus/index.html)

ICE reported in mid-March that there were no confirmed cases of Covid-19 in its immigration detention centres. A month later, however, they reported 124 confirmed cases among detainees in 25 facilities, in addition to 30 positive cases among ICE employees.

According to the Centre for Migration Studies (CMS) of New York, these ICE figures may significantly understate the size and scope of the problem. According to CMS, ICE has only tested 300-400 detainees for Covid-19 (a mere 1 percent of those in ICE custody). “Moreover, they do not count former detainees with COVID-19, a significant number of which have been deported. Nor do they count the infected staff of ICE contractors, including staff of the private corporations that own and operate many ICE detention facilities. … ICE recently confirmed that ‘a number of non-ICE employees (contractors) in facilities that hold ICE detainees have contracted COVID-19, and some of them died from COVID-19.’ However, it has been ‘unable to determine how many non-ICE personnel in state and local jails have contracted COVID-19 or died from COVID-19.’”

ICE also reports that there has been a slight drop in detainees held in its custody. As of 21 March, 38,058 migrants were in ICE custody. By 11 April, this number had dropped to 32,309. In addition, two federal courts have ordered the Trump administration to provide updates on detention centre conditions for children and families. According to the Washington Post, the population in ICE’s three family detention centres fell nearly 40 percent by early April, to 826.

The pandemic has also led to delays in the resettlement of immigrant children waiting to be reunited with their parents and family in Washington, California, and New York. At least five of the 3,100 unaccompanied migrant children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement have tested positive for Covid-19.

Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to continue deporting migrants despite the Covid-19 pandemic may have resulted in spreading the disease to larger, more vulnerable populations. This has been underscored, in particular, by its deportations to Guatemala. On 19 April, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei stated that a total of 50 migrants deported by the United States to Guatemala tested positive for Covid-19. Human rights advocates had been warning for weeks that deportation flights from the United States, the country with the largest known number of Covid-19 cases, could spread the virus to other nations. Amnesty International’s advocacy director for the Americas stated that the situation was “as predictable as it is horrifying … It was just a matter of time that this would happen.” This situation had already occurred a few weeks before. At the end of March 2020, a Guatemalan man who was deported from the United States tested positive for Covid-19 although he was asymptomatic at the time of deportation.

Describing removal proceedings that have resulted from official orders blocking entry by people from “countries where a communicable disease exists,” CMS reports: “The expulsion process occurs in an average of 96 minutes, without medical examination, except for migrants ‘in distress.’ Yet many infected persons will not be in distress. Thus, the process will invariably send infected migrants to communities, without any treatment plan or notice of their condition, to health officials abroad or to the shelter providers that will temporarily house them. By way of contrast, removal via ‘ICE Air’ for ‘detainees who are not ‘new apprehensions’ entails medical clearance, not just the visual screening provided to new apprehensions. Persons deported by plane also receive ‘temperature screening’ at the ‘flight line.’ Yet, the Guatemalan government has twice suspended US deportation flights due to high rates of infection among US deportees. Thus, either these safeguards do not work or the US government has deliberately opted to deport infected persons.”

On 21 April, President Trump tweeted that he would sign an executive order temporarily suspending all immigration into the country. There were no other details on the timing or the scope of the president’s proposed executive order and no official policy statement from the White House. Many officials, however, noted that the administration had already effectively closed down immigration procedures in response to the pandemic. The initial move to ban travel from China has been complemented with a suspension on visa and asylum procedures as well as a halt to border crossing. One U.S. congressional representative tweeted: “Immigration has nearly stopped and the U.S. has far more cases than any other country. This is just xenophobic scapegoating.” Another said: “President Trump now seeks to distract us from his fumbled Covid-19 response by trying to put the blame on immigrants. The truth is many immigrants are on our front lines, protecting us as doctors, nurses, health aids, farmworkers, and restaurant workers.”

Reports indicate that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is making it harder for its employees to take time off during the coronavirus pandemic because of unsubstantiated claims about the border patrol needing support. In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, the National Treasury Employees Union national president wrote: “CBP began informing CBP Officers along the northern and southern borders that the temporary weather and safety leave schedules established to promote their individual health, and the overall health of the entire CBP Office of Field Operations workforce along the border, were immediately suspended”. Reardon indicated that the Department of Homeland Security had not clearly explained why it wants more CBP workers to come in, but implied it might have to do with migrant crossings.

ICE’s previous track record responding to disease outbreaks has raised concerns about its ability to take adequate measures during the Covid-19 crisis. In 2019, ICE was unable to contain the spread of mumps in its detention centres. From September 2018 to June 2019, there were 297 confirmed cases of mumps in ICE’s 39 detention facilities. In September 2019, the Trump administration cut development aid such as programs to fight gang violence and poverty in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician that advised the Department of Homeland Security, stated that “what doctors are seeing is the downstream consequences of terrible policy distorted by partisan politics.”

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