June 2nd 2020

By Gabe Ortiz

Daily Kos

The for-profit Arizona detention facility that was the site of one of the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 among Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees has now become one of the most hard-hit locations in the nation, with at least 76 detained people testing positive as of this past weekend, according to the most recent data that the agency has made available.

Arizona Republic reports that detainees at CoreCivic’s La Palma Correctional Center “have become increasingly desperate” as cases have soared, with dozens begging ICE for release due to medical conditions, including asthma and cancer. "In this place,” they wrote in a letter obtained by Arizona Republic, “hygiene measures are not taken, we do not receive adequate medical treatment or food, and these factors make us more likely to contract the virus.”

Attorney Laura Belous said ICE has failed to provide detainees at La Palma with soap, forcing some to resort to using toothpaste as a cleaning solution. "Our clients also tell us there is no possibility of social distancing in common areas, where people regularly eat at 4-person tables within reach of one another," she said according to Arizona Republic. "Most of the clients I have talked to say they still have a cellmate and cannot maintain 6-foot separation while they sleep or during the many hours per day that they are locked inside while the facility counts detainees."

Fears have only increased following the COVID-19 deaths of a number of immigrants, both in and immediately after being held in ICE custody. 

Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia died in a hospital on May 6 after being denied release from California’s Otay Mesa Detention Facility, which has horrifically seen more than double the cases of La Palma. On May 19, Óscar López Acosta died after being suddenly released from Ohio’s Morrow County Jail. He’d been detained for 18 months, but was released only after a cellmate tested positive for COVID-19. It was too late. Then on May 24, Arizona Republic reports Santiago Baten-Oxla died in a Georgia hospital from COVID-19 after being jailed at a facility that has been sued in the past for inhumane treatment of detainees.

But even three deaths later, ICE has ignored the calls of immigrant rights advocates and experts who have called on federal immigration officials to release a significant number of people in order to help mitigate the pandemic. Per ICE data, more than 1,400 detainees have tested positive for COVID-19, and “detainees have tested positive at 55 of 220 immigration detention facilities in the country,” Arizona Republic reports. Nearly 26,000 people continue to remain in the agency’s custody as of May 23, including thousands of asylum-seekers who likely would’ve been free in any other administration.

The Homeland Security inspector general has said he’s opening an investigation into ICE’s response to the pandemic following a call from more than two dozen Senate Democrats who are drawing attention to reports of detention staffers working closely with detainees without masks or gloves, detainees forced to go without the most basic of hygienic items, and COVID-19 cases rapidly escalating in facilities like Otay Mesa and La Palma. But in the meantime, detainees continue to be needlessly detained at risk to their lives.

"Their letters tell me that they are very concerned and they are very desperate to either get out or get medical attention," advocate Jill Japan told Arizona Republic about asylum-seekers currently detained at La Palma. "And they are concerned that if they get sick they won't be attended to. They are afraid they are going to die.”

Posted with permission