How COVID-19 Affects Immigration Detention Centers

October 13, 2020

Guest blogger: Gabriella Sole, law student, University of San Francisco:

Detention centers among jails and prisons were greatly affected by COVID-19. Many immigrant detainees died at no fault of their own because of the global pandemic. ICE has continued to dispute claims and complaints from detainees and immigrants, denying that they have insufficient supplies within the detention centers. Detainees are and were deprived of basic hygiene supplies to protect themselves against COVID-19. Many immigrants complained that there was a lack of social distancing within the facilities and that no plans or strategies were being implemented to protect them from getting the virus.

At the detention center, Otay Mesa, practices were cut short in helping ensure that their detainees would be safe and taken care of during COVID-19. While some individuals were released on bond, many remained in the facility and became infected by the virus. Briseida Salazar, a national from Mexico who is fighting deportation and was recently detained in Otay Mesa explained what it was like being detained during the pandemic. She said that women in the facility were forced to clean their own living spaces and re-use the same rags in their living spaces as they did in the toilet because there was such a short supply. She also stated that because there were no masks, her and her friends would make masks out of panty liners and any other materials that they had in the centers.

Refusing to provide immigrant detainee’s with masks during a pandemic is negligent and should have been prosecuted against. It is nearly impossible to try to social distance in these type of congregate settings because of the inherently small headquarters that individuals are forced into. Much of the time, beds are placed in a large room or directly next to each other and there are little amounts of room to spread out.

There are multiple epidemiologists who have done research on infectious diseases in prisons that would have been able to offer information to the government to aid in planning to control the disease spread in these detention centers. Chris Beyrer stated that he knew right away that this would be such a monumental issue because the first big outbreaks of COVID-19 were in Wuhan China’s jails and prisons. The U.S government continued to ignore scientists and studies that could have aided in this massive outbreak and instead allowed detainees to die while being held.

As of October 5th, there are 19 new COVID-19 cases this week at Aurora GEO immigration detention center. Aurora Councilmember Allison Hiltz stated, “this facility has a history of not prioritizing the health and safety of its detainees, so I am not surprised that there is an outbreak.” These new cases were also not among new individuals coming into the facility. This shows that had Aurora GEO immigration detention center carried out any safety practices such as social distancing the detainees, providing them with masks and sanitizers, or released individuals for their own health and safety, there would have been no new cases. Aurora GEO immigration detention center and so many other centers are putting their detainees directly at risk.

Many individuals would agree that there should have been a common understanding that indoor facilities such as detention centers where there is a crowded population density, would be a hotspot for COVID. Precautions and a pandemic plan should have been materialized so that when COVID hit, our detainees would be protected against. Many advocates tried encouraging de-carceration so that crowding could be maintained, and social distancing would be somewhat possible. According to ICE, detainee population went from 50,000 to about 19,800 in just a few months because of the pandemic. Now, they are detaining individuals based on their immigration history, criminal record, ties to the community, flight risk and whether the immigrant poses a threat to public safety, according to ICE.

One way that Immigrant Detention Centers tried to manage COVID-19 was placing detainees with the virus in solitary confinement cells for days or weeks at a time without medical treatment. One detainee Carols Hernandez Corbacho who spent over a week in isolation said that he felt as if he was punished and being psychologically tortured for getting sick. These facilities failed to protect the detainees and then turned to solitary confinement which is not only inhumane and a form of torture but will jeopardize individuals who have COVID-19 symptoms from reporting because they will be punished against.

The way that detention centers have handled the pandemic is a sole example of how corrupt the entire immigration system and government is. It shows that the people in power do not care about the health and safety of those who are detained and would rather place their money and resources elsewhere.