Coronavirus
ICE detention centers ‘unprepared’ to battle coronavirus, report shows
Food filled with maggots, gray drinking water and open packages of raw meat leaking blood in refrigerators.
A new report sheds a devastating light on the poor conditions in U.S. immigration jails battling cases of the coronavirus despite pleas to release vulnerable individuals and ensure safe environments for those left inside.
The document emphasizes that these detention centers are “dangerously unprepared for emergencies” such as the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our investigation uncovered new evidence that ICE and detention center operators are endangering the health and safety of thousands of people locked up in the immigration detention system, particularly in new facilities,” the report said. “What we learned from detained people was deeply disturbing.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and the National Immigrant Justice Center conducted in-depth tours and questioning of 150 detainees and staff at five new immigration centers over the last three years to produce the 81-page report titled “Justice-Free Zones.”
The centers were located in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arizona.
As of April 10, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had released nearly 700 detainees — the most updated tally — considered vulnerable to COVID-19, the disease the virus causes, according to CBS News. These include older individuals, those with medical conditions and pregnant women at risk of coronavirus complications.
At least 449 immigrants have tested positive for the virus while in custody, and more than 45% of all immigration detainees have received a positive test result, the outlet reported.
Acting ICE Director Matthew Albence reportedly told members of Congress that the agency was not planning on releasing anymore people outside the categories of vulnerable individuals, CBS News reported.
“The agency has maintained that it has taken all necessary measures to protect employees and detainees from the coronavirus,” the outlet said.
But the report suggests otherwise.
At the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, there was only one doctor on staff whose license had been suspended twice before, the report revealed. What’s more, only half of the positions available for registered nurses were filled.
Staff there showed those conducting the report their emergency room, which had one stretcher and “no basic medical equipment,” with no crash cart or defibrillator — a device used to prevent or correct an uneven or stopped heartbeat — in sight, the report said.
The cart and device were later found in a hallway.
One Mexican immigrant there suffers from asthma and couldn’t get the care he needed.
“I asked the nurses four to five times, but they told me they did not have the inhaler,” Jackson C. said, according to the report. “I have a lot of difficulty breathing and it is hard to sleep. I have pain in my chest and headaches.”
Several reports of moldy walls and leaky roofs that drip on beds were also reported at the Winn center, the report said.
Detainees and staff at La Palma Correctional Center in Arizona called to attention gray drinking water, poor ventilation and clogged toilets that stood just a foot away from their beds, the report said.
Medical personnel at the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana said a request to see an “outside doctor” to set a broken bone “could take within a week,” according to the report.
During a recent scabies outbreak there, detainees were stripped of their clothes and sprayed with chemicals.
A man who was being treated for hypertension and arteriosclerosis — conditions that could put people at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus — said he is afraid to have a heart attack while in custody, the report said.
If he missed “pill call,” he wouldn’t receive his medication for the day, which could have a deadly result.
Another Louisiana detention center failed to provide soap for bathing or cleaning supplies for cells and bathrooms, the report said.
“There are maggots in the food,” one man there said.
A Nicaraguan asylum-seeker who is at the Richwood center where there is a major coronavirus outbreak told CBS News he fears being infected by and dying from the disease.
“My family is suffering, not only because of my imprisonment, but because of the concerns that I may be infected at any moment. No one is immune from this virus,” said Carlos, who asked the outlet for his name to be changed.
“Imagine this,” he added. “We leave our families, fleeing our home countries to try to save our lives. And then we come here and die while imprisoned, powerless to do anything.”
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