The alarming outbreak of COVID-19 in immigration detention centers

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the federal entity in charge of protecting the US borders and overseeing immigration detention centers around the country.

Since the massive outbreak of Coronavirus in North America, dozens of immigrant rights advocates warned about the risk present in immigration detention centers.

They argued that ICE facilities would become hotbeds of the virus for multiple reasons.

Let’s see some of them:

• These centers are usually overcrowded. It is well known that the main recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO) is social distancing. Therefore, the fact that these centers do not have enough space makes them more prone to a massive outbreak of COVID-19.
• Immigrants do not bathe every day and multiple testimonies assure that bathrooms are not always in adequate hygienic conditions.
• Detention centers do not have enough protective supplies such as hand sanitizer, masks, gloves and anti-fluid gowns.
• There are not enough medical personnel available.

Nowadays, these activists’ predictions are the reality of immigration detention centers around the country. In fact, multiple lawsuits have recently been filed due to the alarming number of immigrants infected with Coronavirus in ICE centers.

Judge orders Coronavirus tests for detained immigrants

The number of positive cases of COVID-19 is growing exponentially at one of ICE’s California-based immigration detention centers.

For this reason, a federal judge ordered ICE to rule out possible positive cases by testing detainees for the Coronavirus.

In addition to that, the judge ordered:

• Weekly tests for all detainees and ICE employees.
• Rooms dedicated only to the isolation and care of detainees who test positive for the Coronavirus.
• ICE must attend a second hearing on August 21 to review if it has followed the judge’s orders and to analyze whether these measures should be extended.
• This detention center cannot receive more immigrants, at least for a period of time.
• ICE must release immigrants who have underlying health conditions that make them more prone to possible complications if they catch the Coronavirus.

Immigrant rights advocates who presented this lawsuit assure that ICE, being a federal entity, should not have waited until a judge intervened, but that these are the protocols that it should have followed since the Coronavirus arrived in the US.

However, ICE’s response to the pandemic was slow and ineffective, according to the opinion of the local judge and dozens of critics around the country.

Submit your immigration application

Despite the multiple restrictions put in place by the Trump administration in the immigration sector, we can see the regular processes return to normal.

Therefore, it is the right time for you to start your immigration journey in the US and obtain your legal documentation as soon as possible.

To achieve this goal, the best option is to follow the advice of experts on immigration issues.

If you have any questions about an immigration issue or relating to a case you may have currently in progress, then please don’t hesitate to contact us for a FREE Phone Consultation with one of our expert immigration attorneys.

Simply call Motion Law today at: (202) 918-1799.