December 19, 2020

ICE has exacerbated the spread of COVID

topic:	Immigration
located:	USA
editor:	Yair Oded

A new report by Detention Watch Network exposes the grim reality at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and presents further evidence attesting to egregious neglect by the agency and its flagrant disregard to the health of both detainees and the general population. According to the report, not only did the agency’s conduct during the pandemic result in thousands of infections and 8 reported deaths of immigrant detainees, but also in nearly a quarter of a million cases throughout the country. 

The report, titled Hotbeds of Infections, finds ICE detention facilities to be “among the deadliest of public institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic,” and states that they made surges in infections far worse in their surrounding communities.

The dire, unsanitary conditions at ICE’s 221 prisons across the US – where, even during the pandemic, inmates are crammed into close quarters – have morphed the facilities into Petri dishes of coronavirus. Hotbeds of Infections confirms that the agency’s legacy of subjecting immigrants to inhumane treatment has exacerbated during the virus, and finds that ICE has intentionally avoided testing detainees so it wouldn’t have to implement protective measures. 

The report buttresses previous findings that the agency neglected to provide inmates with masks, disinfectants, and soap, has failed to enact social distancing guidelines and under-reported infection statistics. To date, at least 7,000 detained migrants have contracted the virus and 8 of them died from complications of the disease. 

Detention Watch Network has also found that ICE repeatedly ignored calls early on in the pandemic urging it to ramp up its attempts to staunch the surge of infections and release as many detainees as possible – particularly those most vulnerable to the virus. This included a Pennsylvania judge order from March ordering ICE to release 10 at-risk detainees, and an April decision by a judge calling on the agency to release all inmates over the age of 55 and admonishing the agency for placing inmates and staff at risk. Despite these decisions, as well as numerous journalistic investigations revealing the unsanitary conditions and endemic neglect of inmates at ICE facilities, the agency continued to enforce arrest, refused to release the vast majority of detainees, and failed to provide them with proper medical attention and protective measures from the virus. 

The result has not only been rising outbreaks within ICE facilities but also dramatic surges in infections in areas surrounding the prisons – as a steady flow in and out of the facilities continued. According to Detention Watch Network’s report, between 1 May and 1 August alone, roughly 245,000 COVID-19 cases throughout the country could be traced back to ICE facilities. This means that about 5.5 of all US cases can be attributed to ICE.

According to The Intercept, ICE has also contributed to outbreaks of the virus abroad, by continuing to deport people en masse to countries with incredibly weak healthcare infrastructures, including Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador, and India. 

At ICE facilities throughout the US, detainees who complain about their conditions or demand adequate treatment often experience harsh reprisals from the agency. In Alabama, ICE detainees requesting COVID-19 tests were reportedly forced into solitary confinement. The same punitive measure was used against female inmates at an ICE detention centre in Georgia who filmed themselves describing the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at the prison. A Mother Jones investigation from April has revealed that women who peacefully protested their conditions at an ICE facility in Louisiana were pepper-sprayed by the guards and began suffocating. 

Although the Trump administration has attempted to pin the surge in infections on immigrants themselves and utilised the pandemic in order to exacerbate an already harsh crack-down on immigration, experts indicate that it is the immigration system itself that is to blame for spreading the disease. “Medical evidence suggests that punitive immigration enforcement — such as packing detention facilities or scaring immigrants away from accessing medical care — is the true threat to public health,” Dr. Ranit Mishori, a Georgetown University School of Medicine professor and senior medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights, told The Intercept. 

ICE’s record of subjecting migrants to inhumane treatment and abuse predates the outbreak of the pandemic. As per Detention Watch Network’s report, more than 200 migrants (among them children) have died since the establishment of the agency in 2004. 

The incoming Biden administration will not only have to take immediate measures to allay the sprawling COVID-19 outbreak at ICE detention facilities and extend urgent medical assistance to detainees but regard this calamity as a final proof that the entire immigration system in the country needs to be overhauled and re-imagined. 

Aside from the long-term objective of abolishing ICE altogether, Detention Watch Network recommends that the agency significantly reduce the number of people in detention (as per the advice of medical experts), halt enforcement activities, cease the transfers of detainees within the immigration jail system as well as from state and local jails and prisons, and impose an immediate moratorium on deportations. 

Image by Image by Gulbenk/cc

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