COVID-19 IMPACTS ON IMMIGRATION DETENTION: GLOBAL RESPONSES HOW PRIVATE PRISONS ARE EXACERBATING COVID-19 IN THE UNITED STATES AND BEYOND The United States maintains the largest immigration detention infrastructure in the world.1 Since the first person contracted COVID-19 in U.S. immigration detention in March 2020, Freedom for Immigrants has been monitoring the U.S. government’s incompetent and lethal response to the pandemic in this supposed civil form of imprisonment. 2 THE PANDEMIC HIGHLIGHTS PROBLEMS WITH PRIVATE PRISONS Over 70 percent of people in U.S. immigration detention are caged in private prisons. 3 In addition, many government-run facilities have components of their services managed by private contractors.4 We have found significant deficiencies in the responses to the pandemic by both private and public facilities, underscoring that the problems are systemic. However, the influence of private prisons and private prison contractors in compounding the effects of COVID-19 in U.S. immigration detention cannot be overstated. The U.S. government has refused to track or make public information on the number of positive COVID-19 cases among Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s third-party contract staff. In April, an ICE spokesperson said that the agency does not have an obligation to report instances in which private contract staff test positive for COVID19. 5 Later that month, two guards at a private immigration detention facility in Louisiana died from COVID-19.6 Essentially, the U.S. government has decided to adopt a head-in-thesand approach to tracking the origins of COVID-19 cases in immigration detention. This is aggravated by the unwillingness of private prison contractors to test people in immigration detention. For example, after an apparent suicide at the Mesa Verde Detention Facility in California,7 ICE lawyers advised the agency to initiate COVID-19 testing for everyone detained there. 8 However, representatives of the private health care company Wellpath—which contracts with ICE at Mesa Verde—expressed concern that mass testing would result in high numbers of positive COVID-19 cases and that the GEO Group-run facility was not equipped to implement quarantines. As a result, ICE chose not to administer testing at Mesa Verde. It is tragically unsurprising, then, that when a federal court judge ordered testing, more than half of the people detained at the facility tested positive.9 Mesa Verde is not an outlier. Since March 2020, approximately 5,640 people of the over 32,500 tested in immigration detention have been confirmed positive for COVID-19. This 18 percent infection rate is outrageously disproportionate to national and global averages, and at least six people have died.10 Of these deaths, five occurred at a private prison, and the sixth death occurred at the Glades County Detention Center that relies heavily on private correctional services.11 We know that there is no way to social distance in immigration detention, which is why Freedom for Immigrants has urged the U.S. government to free all people from immigration detention12 as Spain has accomplished.13 We also know that not properly testing, tracking, and preventing with personal protective equipment (PPE), combined with continued use of inter-facility and inter-agency transfers, needlessly accelerates the proliferation of COVID-19. For instance, in early August at the privately-run El Valle Detention Facility in Texas, people who had tested positive for COVID-19 were transferred into the facility and held in housing units with people who had not been tested and did not display COVID-19 symptoms.14 Recent investigations show that ICE continues to move people from centers with COVID-19 cases to centers with no known cases and vice versa.15 These transfers are usually accomplished through private companies, such as GEO Group and Trailboss Enterprises. PRIVATE PRISONS EXPAND DETENTION WORLDWIDE Evidence suggests that the negative impact of private prison companies on the pandemic is not exclusive to the United States. For example, staff have tested positive at the GEO Group-run Wolston Correctional Centre in Australia, and like the United States, staff are not being required to wear PPE when in contact with detained people.16 1 2 3 4 Global Detention Project, available at https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/americas/united-states. Freedom for Immigrants, available at https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/covid19. The Sentencing Project, available at https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-prisons-united-states/. See, “Prison Companies Are Profiting Off of COVID-19: We Must Hold Them Accountable.” IMM-Print. March 26, 2020, available at https://imm-print.com/prisoncompanies-are-profiting-off-of-covid-19-we-must-hold-them-accountable/. 5 Madan, Monique O. “Two workers at ICE Detention Center in Miami-Dade Test Positive for Coronavirus.” Miami Herald. April 6, 2020, available at https://www. miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article241791511.html. See also Gardiner, Sarah. “Real Time Conditions Report, April 15, 2020 – April 29, 2020.” Freedom for Immigrants, available at https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/s/FFI-April-29-COVID-19-Updated.pdf. 6 https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/04/29/2-ice-jail-guards-louisiana-die-coronavirus/ 7 Castillo, Andrea. “ICE said a 74-year-old was too dangerous to release. He died of apparent suicide.” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2020, available at https://www. latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-20/immigrant-ice-detention-suicide-coronavirus. 8 Gardiner, Sarah. “Real Time Conditions Report, July 17, 2020 – August 13, 2020.” Freedom for Immigrants, available at https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/s/ FFI-August-13-COVID-19-update_FINAL-s9hs.pdf. See also https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.358452/gov.uscourts.cand.358452.489.7.pdf. 9 Morgen, Sam. “More than half the detainees at Mesa Verde ICE facility test positive for coronavirus, lawyers say.” The Record, August 18, 2020, available at https:// www.bakersfield.com/delano-record/more-than-half-the-detainees-at-mesa-verde-ice-facility-test-positive-for-coronavirus-lawyers/article_83a2c87e-e19c-11eabb38-c3a88ee3b09c.html. 10 https://www.ice.gov/coronavirus 11 https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/cjr_fla_detention_report-final_1.pdf 12 https://twitter.com/MigrantFreedom/status/1296469297699725313 13 http://cepaim.org/en-la-epoca-de-la-covid-19-espana-ofrece-al-mundo-una-via-para-poner-fin-al-internamiento-migratorio/ (Spanish); For English see also https://imm-print.com/in-the-age-of-covid-spain-offers-the-world-a-pathway-to-detention-abolition/ 14 Gardiner, Sarah. “Real Time Conditions Report, July 17, 2020 – August 13, 2020.” Freedom for Immigrants, available at https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/s/ FFI-August-13-COVID-19-update_FINAL-s9hs.pdf. 15 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-immigration-detent/us-immigration-officials-spread-coronavirus-with-detainee-transfers-idUSKCN24I1G0 16 https://www.accr.org.au/news/private-prisons-immigration-detention-and-covid-19/ 58 International Detention Coalition and Western Sydney University