In the past several months, ICE has shuffled hundreds of people in its custody around the country The transfers, which ICE says were sometimes done to curb the spread of COVID-19, have led to outbreaks, according to attorneys, reports and ICE declarations
Richwood had 29 confirmed cases at the time."Many of these positive cases were transferred from other facilities to Richwood," the official told the court., prison officials told employees they'd be required to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, due to staff shortages caused by a"high number of positive COVID 19 staff cases.
" About a week later, two Richwood guards died from COVID-19.Stories like that concern Rep. Jason Crow, D.-Colo. The weekly reports he gets about the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, outside of Denver, show hundreds of detainees have transferred in and out since the pandemic began. "These aren't people coming from the border or picked up," said Crow, whose district includes Aurora."These are people being moved around."swept through nearly 60 detention facilities, infecting more than 900 immigrants. In a letter to ICE early this month, Rep. Crow expressed concern that transfers could introduce the disease to facilities and surrounding communities, pointing to thefrom the Sterling Correctional Facility, a state prison that then had the largest single COVID-19 outbreak in Colorado. Last week, Aurora diagnosed its first cases of coronavirus among detainees, though several guards have been infected. One of the two men with COVID-19 had recently transferred from Sterling, according to his attorney, Henry Hollithron. Oscar Perez Aguirre, 57, arrived with a fever. After his health quickly deteriorated, said Hollithron, he was hospitalized. Aurora now has five cases. GEO Group, the private prison company that runs Aurora, said it has been making every effort to keep both employees and detainees safe. "Our utmost priority has always been the health and safety of all those in our care and our employees," a spokesperson said, adding the GEO Group has no role in the decisions of who ICE transfers or releases. Federal courts have begun to question ICE about how its transfer practices may be putting detainees at risk. On May 21, a court in South Florida requested that ICE disclose whether"transfers have been known to result in an increase in COVID-19 cases." ICE asserted they have not.This came after the agency moved 33 detainees from the Krome Detention Facility in Florida to a nearby lockup in Broward County. Following the transfer, 16 detainees tested positive for the virus, as first, driving the number of cases at Broward from three to 19, according to ICE statistics. ICE told the court that it has broad discretion under the law to relocate detainees as needed. The agency regularly transfers people due to risk level, where it has bed space, for medical reasons or to deport them, the agency said, adding that it does not transfer or deport those with symptoms, who are waiting for test results, or who are suspected to have COVID-19, unless medically necessary. The detainees who were moved to Broward were cleared before leaving, ICE told the court, and were put into a 14-day quarantine. Because they have been cohorted, the agency said,"ICE does not believe that the transfer has resulted in an increase in COVID-19 cases at" Broward.A federal court in Louisiana has publicly questioned the agency's accounting of cases, particularly with regard to transfers. In response to another lawsuit seeking to free immigrants there, ICE stated in a sworn affidavit that as of the afternoon of May 18, there were"no known cases" at the LaSalle ICE Processing Center in Jena, La. Days before, the agency reported 15. In an order that led to the release of 14 detainees, the judges described ICE's approach to transfers as an outlier. "We can only speculate that some of these detainees were moved to other facilities as it is well known that ICE has continued operations and not followed the lead of the Bureau of Prisons and Louisiana Department of Corrections, both of whom have largely precluded the movement of their inmates," the court wrote.Those held inside the nation's immigrant detention facilities could see coronavirus coming, but could do little to stop it. From inside his dorm at the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, Oscar Mejia watched the new detainees arrive through April. He and those who slept on the bunks arranged in close rows worried that soon enough, the virus would make its way in, too. "They've brought new people from other places — from Dallas, from all over," Mejia said in a phone call from the facility, where he has been since February."Those are people who are coming, they might not be well."Courtesy Betsy Mejia At least 200 people were transferred to Bluebonnet since mid-March, according to news reports and numbers provided by Management and Training Corporation , the private company that runs Bluebonnet. Whether the coronavirus was carried in by one of them, or the six officers who have tested positive, Mejia couldn't say. But beginning in April, he and others in his dorm developed fevers and coughs. Treatment, he said, consisted of Tylenol, allergy pills and salt to gargle with.That mirrors the account in a YouTubeposted on April 29 that shows a group of men pleading for help from a facility they say is Bluebonnet. "We've been telling them we're sick, they're not doing anything right," a man in the video said."All they're doing is giving us Tylenol." NBC News could not verify the source of the video, but the detainees' uniforms, the ceiling of the dorm, and the dates mentioned in it correspond to verified information and images. Mejia said he was finally tested for COVID-19 in mid-May. He came back positive, along with 131 other men at Bluebonnet, roughly a quarter of those held there.
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