As part of the special “Pandemic: Latinos in Crisis”, CBS News interviewed detained immigrants who fear the rapid spread of the coronavirus within ICE detention facilities.
Rosa Escobar said the helplessness she felt during her brother’s hospitalization in May was emotionally crippling. “I wanted to run. I wanted to run to save my little brother.”
More than two months have passed since his brother, Carlos Escobar Mejía, died at the age of 57 while in custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), and Escobar said his heart it still hurts every day.
“I loved my little brother as if he were his mother. So I saw him, as if he were my son. For this to have happened, it is a great injustice,” Escobar told CBS News in Spanish during an interview in his Los Angeles. home.
Carlos, who fled to the United States in 1980 with his family during El Salvador’s civil war, was the first immigrant to die of coronavirus complications while in ICE custody. Later in May, Santiago Baten-Oxlag, 34, a Guatemalan immigrant detained by ICE in Georgia, also died after contracting the virus. Onoval Pérez-Montufa, 51, a Mexican immigrant who tested positive for coronavirus in ICE detention, died in a South Florida hospital last week while in agency custody.
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Since the end of March, coronavirus cases among ICE detainees have steadily increased. More than 3,500 immigrants have tested positive for the virus while in the agency’s custody so far. Almost 1,000 Positive immigrants remain in detention and are under isolation or surveillance. At least 220 immigrants also tested positive after ICE deported them to their home countries. Some immigrants have been hospitalized, but the agency has not publicly said how many.
More than 880 employees of private prison companies that run immigration detention facilities have tested positive, according to congressional testimony earlier this month by executives of ICE’s top four contractors. At least 45 direct ICE employees working in detention centers have also been infected.
ICE has repeatedly maintained that it is doing everything possible to protect the detainees, staff, and contractors who oversee many of the agency’s detention centers. It has pointed to the fact that its detainee population plummeted from over 38,000 in mid-March to less than 23,000 in mid-July.
However, much of the drop can be attributed to reduced immigration enforcement in the interior of the country during the pandemic and to fewer transfers by border officials, who are quickly expelling most migrants and asylum seekers under a public health directive. ICE has also deported more than 37,000 immigrants in the past four months to Latin America alone.
The agency said it released more than 900 detainees it considered at risk after an internal review that concluded in early May. Since then, he has been considering case-by-case releases. ICE has also been required to release more than 500 immigrants due to recent court orders.
But advocates believe the agency has not released everyone who should be released from detention during a pandemic, including approximately 3,500 asylum seekers who have shown a credible fear of being tortured or persecuted if they are deported.
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Miguel Rodríguez Medina, a detainee at the Port Isabel Detention Center in South Texas, said he fled to the US after being persecuted at the hands of the Cuban government. But he never expected to be detained for nearly a year on American soil.
“I came running away from the threat of being jailed there, so my family doesn’t worry. And now I am in the same situation here,” he told CBS in Spanish.
Like other detainees interviewed by CBS News, Rodríguez Medina said the only way ICE can protect them from the coronavirus is by releasing them.
Legally, ICE detention is a civil matter designed to ensure that immigrants appear at court hearings as the government seeks to deport them. The agency has full authority to release its detainees, unlike federal, state, and local authorities that hold people in criminal custody.
Griselda Meléndez, a 54-year-old green card holder born in Mexico, has multiple underlying medical conditions, but has remained in ICE custody throughout the pandemic.
“I am a person who had cancer. I could contract a disease immediately,” Meléndez told CBS News in Spanish during a video call from inside a private detention center in Jena, Louisiana. “My immune defenses are weak.”
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Melendez also has diabetes, high blood pressure, inflammation of the gallbladder, and said she is losing her sight. These conditions appear to make her eligible for release under an April order from a federal judge in California. But ICE has denied Meléndez’s parole, citing a criminal conviction for transporting undocumented immigrants. She served a 5-month sentence in federal prison before entering ICE custody in February.
In addition to arresting asylum seekers, recent border crossings, and undocumented immigrants, ICE has green card holders like Meléndez, who has already served prison terms while seeking to deport them. Under a 1996 Clinton-era law, noncitizens like Meléndez are subject to mandatory immigration detention if convicted of any of a wide range of crimes, some of which are non-violent and classified as minor offenses under the law. state.
Justice Department attorneys have argued in court that detainees subject to mandatory detention “are not eligible for discretionary release,” even if they have the underlying health problems that place them at increased risk for serious illness or death if they contract the coronavirus.
“It appears to be impossible to remove someone who is a mandatory detainee, even if they have one or more underlying conditions,” Laura Murchie, a lawyer at the Southern Poverty Law Center representing Meléndez, told CBS News. “These people have served their sentences. Now they are being confined again, which is like a second punishment.”
In an interview with CBS News, Henry Lucero, the associate executive director of ICE who oversees the arrests, detentions and deportations of immigrants, defended the agency’s practices. He noted that ICE now has a virus detection policy for new detainees, offered expanded testing at some detention centers, and has so far examined more than 13,000 immigrants in its custody.
“We actually went beyond CDC guidelines to really try to mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” Lucero said, adding that ICE consults with public health officials weekly. “Initially, the CDC guideline was only to assess detainees who were symptomatic or potentially exposed to known positive cases. That has changed since then, and we have changed with it.”
When asked about concerns about immigrants testing positive after being deported, Lucero said some detainees undergo tests before boarding deportation flights, as requested by several countries. He said that all deported applicants have their temperature checked. If their temperature is 99 degrees or more, they are not allowed to board the flight.
Lucero said the increase in coronavirus cases within detention facilities can be largely attributed to an increase in infections among new detainees who were previously in jails, prisons or in the custody of border officials. The statistics of 3,500 detainees who tested positive, she added, do not fully reflect the situation her agency had to face. Lucero said that while the current population of detainees is less than 23,000, approximately 40,000 immigrants have entered ICE custody since March, and estimated that 80,000 different people have been in the agency’s detention centers since an emergency was declared. national.
“Make no mistake, keeping people safe in our custody is not something we take lightly,” said Lucero. “And under no circumstances should the American public or the families of those in our custody be allowed to think otherwise.”
For her part, Meléndez is afraid that her health will continue to deteriorate during the pandemic. She pleads with ICE to give her “another chance.”
“Losing sight is a horrible thing. What more can I ask for? So that they give me the opportunity to get out of here, so that I can take care of myself,” he added. “I want to continue living. I have a granddaughter and children who need me.”
Mandy Aracena and Luis Giraldo contributed reports.
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