Another worker tests positive for COVID-19 at Tacoma immigrant detention center
A health care worker at the immigration detention facility on the Tacoma Tideflats has tested positive for COVID-19, according to court documents.
The employee, now in quarantine, is an acting nurse manager at the Tacoma ICE Processing Center (Northwest Detention Center). U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was notified of positive results on Oct. 26 from an Oct. 25 test, court documents show.
The employee is part of the ICE Health Services Corps (IHSC) and last worked at the facility on Oct. 22.
The positive result brings the total of positive staff tests for this month to three.
The News Tribune reported on the first in early October and the second on Oct. 21 was disclosed in court documents.
The documents are disclosures mandated by a June 4 court order that requires “ICE to notify the court within 24 hours if any individual at the NWIPC tests positive for COVID-19.”
As reported by KUOW, there have been “16 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among detained undocumented immigrants” at the facility.
An ICE official told The News Tribune the “safety of ICE detainees is one of the agency’s highest priorities.” The official declined to provide information on the frequency of testing as well as the scope of what contact tracing has been pursued.
The ICE official declined to comment on staff positives and directed inquiries to the GEO group, a private prison company that runs the detention center, regarding personnel.
A spokesperson for GEO told The News Tribune, “We take our responsibility to ensure the health and safety of all those in our care and our employees with the utmost seriousness.”
As of Oct. 16, GEO requires all employees to wear masks in “public” areas of the facility.
GEO declined to comment on the specifics surrounding the third positive test and did not provide information about when staff are notified of potential exposure.
Matt Adams, an attorney with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Group, expressed worry about the safety of those at the facility. The center has a capacity for 1,575 adults, ICE said during a 2019 media tour. There are approximately 380 employees at the facility currently.
“There is just so much concern there,” Adams said. “For the most part, ICE has dug in their heels because they don’t want to acknowledge that they’re not able to keep these people reasonably safe.”
Adams pointed to other facilities that have seen spikes in cases such as the La Palma Correctional Center in Arizona which has had 437 cases and the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia which has had 372 cases.
Adams said those outbreaks show the need for proactive action in Tacoma.
“They shouldn’t wait until it’s already happened to release at least the people who are highly vulnerable,” Adams said. “They’ve got these big contracts with these private prisons and right now they don’t have as many beds filled as they’re paying for. There is a lot at stake and also with just asserting their authority to detain who they want. They’re taking that and giving it precedence over the reasonable safety of the individuals who are locked up there.”
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health department currently “define a business outbreak as 2 or more cases in a shared location,” which Adams believes the detention center is experiencing.
“Certainly the business has had an outbreak,” Adams said. “They’ve had two GEO guards and a health care worker who have all been exposed.”
Maru Mora Villalpando, a community organizer with La Resistencia, said in a news release that “COVID-19 cannot be contained inside the facility” and “ICE has the power to release all these detained people back to their families rather than jeopardize their lives while hiding the deadly conditions inside its facilities from the public.”
