As COVID-19 cases continue to surge across the globe, the United States remains one of the primary epicenters in the Western hemisphere. In particular, there has been ever-growing concern from public health and medical professionals about the handling of COVID-19 within the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also referred to as ICE, detention centers. Although ICE proposed that they placed certain safety measures to contain the virus, they failed to accomplish this as they allegedly underreported the number of actual cases, risked the safety of the detainees and contractors by not following their policies, and neglected to support medically vulnerable detainees and children.
The ICE official database reported that there were currently 22,340 detainees within their facilities and 13,562 had been tested for COVID-19.1 As of June 18, 2020, a total of 153 ICE employees tested positive. As of July 16, 2020, 967 detainees had tested positive.2 By contrast, a statistical model developed by Vera Institute of Justice from collected data available to the public showed that ICE was underreporting their numbers. Their model indicated that the number of cases could be 15 times higher than ICE had stated.3 The Vera Institute of Justice claimed that ICE had “reported COVID-19 cases in only a fraction of the facilities it [used].”4
In addition to the lack of transparency about the severity in the rising number of cases, ICE also fell short in their ability to meet basic safety measures for officers and detainees. An email statement from ICE to NBC news communicated that they had taken the necessary steps to protect detainees, staff, and contractors by “reducing the number of detainees in custody by placing individuals on alternatives to detention programs, suspending social visitation, incorporating social distancing practices with staggered meals and recreation times, and through the use of cohorting and medical isolation.”5
However, reports from various sources shared that ICE inadequately safeguarded their contractors and detainees to halt the spread of COVID-19. In an interview with NPR, detainee Shakira Najera Chilel shared her experience in an Arizona detention center that was heavily affected by COVID-19. Chilel was worried that she was at risk of facing death as there were several people on her cell block that tested positive.6
Contractors of ICE that worked at the detention centers expressed similar levels of concern for their safety. For example, a former correctional officer, contracted by ICE at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, exposed the unsafe workplace conditions. He shared that correctional officers were told to ration masks and gloves, given garbage bags with holes instead of protective gowns when going into isolation pods with infected detainees, and told to keep working even if workers were symptomatic.7 Moreover, the workers were never told which co-workers or detainees were symptomatic or had tested positive.8 Without this information, they could not be aware if came into contact with someone who had COVID-19 and if they should be monitoring their families and themselves. ICE failed to meet their own claims to protect the employees of these facilities.
He also said by transferring detainees to other detention centers, they risked extending the spread of the virus to more locations and the well-being of detainees.9 Further, the areas in which the detainees were situated were not sanitized properly, watering down the surfaces instead of using alcohol-based products.10 Even if it was evident that detainees contracted the virus, their symptoms were ignored so they could be approved for a deportation. For example, a detainee was told to “hold a frozen bottle against his forehead until his temperature registered normal so he could be deported.”11
In order to prevent the virus from spreading even more, American Civil Liberties Union senior lawyer Eunice Cho said in her interview with NPR that ICE needed to release detainees. Cho specifically stated that ICE “ should continue to release people, especially those who are medically vulnerable to COVID-19, to prevent a humanitarian disaster.”12
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said that they would not release most detainees in a brief conference at a Coast Guard station. Wolf noted that ICE was not going to “release all of the detainees in our care… [because] it’s irresponsible to the communities [they] release them into.”13
With ICE’s failure to efficiently release detainees, federal judges and other independent advocate groups began to press for their liberation, especially children and those who were medically vulnerable. U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal said that ICE had “exhibited callous indifference to the safety and well-being of the vulnerable detained immigrants” and issued an emergency preliminary injunction for the release of all medically vulnerable detainees.14 Bernal wrote in a footnote that it would be better to release the remaining immigrants who have not been convicted of a crime, however, ICE “[had] not elected to do so.”15
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee also came to the aid of detainees, by ordering the release of children and their families being held in detention centers that experienced a high number of COVID-19 cases. Gee filed this order as she “denounced the Trump administration’s prolonged detention of families during the coronavirus pandemic.”16 Her order specifically required the release of children in three Texan and Pennsylvanian detention centers, with their families or to family sponsors, who were in custody for more than 20 days by July 17, 2020.17
ICE failed to properly handle COVID-19 within their facilities as they underreported the true number of cases and did not abide by their safety protocols. As a result, court challenges to ICE’s detention practices will continue to increase unless ICE changes several policies to release more detainees and better protect the health of detained immigrants. ICE must respond swiftly and efficiently, otherwise countless lives will continue to be unnecessarily at risk of contracting COVID-19.
Ananta Srivastava
1 “Ice Guidance on COVID-19,” ICE, accessed July 17, 2020, https://www.ice.gov/coronavirus.
2 “Ice Guidance on COVID-19.”
3 Nina Siluc,“Vera’s New Prevalence Model Suggests COVID-19 is Spreading through ICE Detention at Much Higher Rates than Publicized,” Vera Institute of Justice, June 4, 2020,
4 Nina Siluc.
5 Carmen Sesin, “COVID-19 cases among immigrant detainees could be 15 times higher than ICE reports, study says,” NBC News, July, 1, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/covid-19-cases-among-immigrant-detainees-could-be-15-times-n1232700.
6 “Arizona ICE Detention Center Devastated by COVID-19, NPR, July 1, 2020, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/885900217.
7 Daniel Gonzalez, “Former Eloy correctional officers blame negligence for high COVID-19 outbreak,” AZCentral, July 1, 2020, https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2020/07/01/two-eloy-officers-detail-management-failures-enabling-covid-outbreak/3255079001/.
8 Daniel Gonzalez.
9 Daniel Gonzalez.
10 Daniel Gonzalez.
11 Daniel Gonzalez.
12 “Arizona ICE Detention Center Devastated by COVID-19.”
13 Max Rivlin-Nadler, “Top DHS Official Says ICE Won’t Release Detainees Just to Avoid COVID-19 Risk,” KPBS, May 13, 2020, https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/may/13/acting-homeland-security-secretary-tours-border-sa/
14 Meagan Flynn, “ICE delayed its pandemic response, putting detainees at ‘substantial’ risk of harm, judge finds,” The Washington Post, April 21, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/21/ice-coronavirus-detention-ruling/.
15 Meagan Flynn.
16 Nomaan Merchant, “Judge: U.S. Must Free Migrants Children Detained With Parents,” Time, June 26, 2020, https://time.com/5860680/judge-rules-migrant-children-release/.
17 Nomaan Merchant.
HopHaven Immigration Clinic 