Last week, I published a story about conditions inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bulk of my reporting focused on the Pine Prairie ICE processing center in Louisiana, where four detainees have now tested positive for the virus. 

Asylum seekers in Pine Prairie told me they find it impossible to practice social distancing and are in constant fear of a COVID-19 outbreak. Pedro Iglesias Tamayo showed me the small bar of soap he’s allotted each week, and said the only thing he gets to wipe down the common dining tables is a damp towel. “They have us here trapped like animals,” he told me. Manuel Rodriguez Ruiz has asthma, and said he’s cut back on the small simple pleasures that used to get him through. He doesn’t buy commissary food, like instant soup and crackers, anymore because he’s worried the products might bring the virus inside. “This isn’t about liberty anymore. This is about our health and our lives,” he told me.

I spoke to them using a video visitation app called GettingOut. But after my story ran, their video chat accounts were marked “suspended” on the app. It is not clear exactly or how their access got suspended. 

For a week now, I haven’t spoken with Rodriguez or Iglesias. And most importantly, they are also cut off from seeing their loved ones via video chat, a brief respite from the constant confinement they’ve experienced for nearly a year.

Our attorney sent a letter to the Pine Prairie warden and to ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility this week arguing that cutting off the men’s access to GettingOut constituted a potential violation of the First Amendment. We are awaiting a response.
 

A LOOK INSIDE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL CENTERS DURING COVID-19

In recent weeks, we’ve brought you stories like the one above about the Trump administration’s failure to protect detained immigrants and its own employees from the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we told you about how immigration workers were still required to report to work even as COVID-19 cases increased and the rest of American life rapidly shut down.

We’ve also reported on how the government is handling unaccompanied migrant children. In our latest Reveal episode, my colleague Aura Bogado spoke with a teenage boy who’s desperate to get out of a shelter run in Northern California. He has a family waiting to take him in, but the government won’t even consider its application. Aura has also reported that children in custody in New York were no longer being reunited with their families as planned. 

And now, recent court filings in the landmark Flores case that has protected the rights of migrant children for two decades give us a glimpse into conditions inside the three centers run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement specifically for parents and children who are in custody together.

Families told attorneys that they don’t have access to cleaning supplies and that facility staff don’t speak to them about any preventative measures being taken. In response to their allegations, government attorneys pointed out in court filings that the three facilities are “operating significantly under their total capacity” and that ICE is considering families for release in light of the pandemic.

Here’s what we learned about each center:

Berks Family Residential Center: Inside this Pennsylvania facility, about 50 adults and children live in a two-story building, where they share rooms, bathrooms, and a dining area, court records state. Families reported to lawyers that soap dispensers in bathrooms are broken, staff have not advised them of any precautions to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak, and hand sanitizer is only available in the lobby area and the “legal visit room” where attorneys meet with clients. As of March 26, one mother and child were in medical isolation “for COVID-19 related concerns,” wrote attorney Bridget Cambria in a court declaration. “The families are scared.”

South Texas Family Residential Center: Last month, 23 mothers inside the Dilley, Texas, facility told attorneys that their requests for disinfectant cleaning wipes were denied, and one mother reported she was only provided paper towels to clean her room. “Several families state the bathrooms are extremely dirty,” according to a court declaration filed by the Dilley Pro Bono Project. “One mother noted that she has only observed detention center staff disinfect areas once per day. Another mother noted that she has never seen the communal computer in the library cleaned or disinfected.”

Karnes County Family Residential Center: Families at this Texas facility told lawyers that they are being instructed to stay in their rooms for most of the day, including for breakfast. They’re eating lunch and dinner in the dining area, but staff are now grouping them into tables of 10 in an attempt to comply with a state order that bans gatherings larger than 10 people. “TVs are now set to a channel that shows movies,” one lawyer wrote in a court declaration. “They are prohibited from watching the news.” 
 

DEVELOPMENTS WE’RE WATCHING

At least half of deportees from the U.S. have COVID-19, a top Guatemalan official says. According to the Los Angeles Times, ICE has deported hundreds of Guatemalans in recent weeks, with 182 arriving just on Monday. In one recent flight, said minister of health Hugo Monroy, more than 75 percent of deportees tested positive for the virus. Last month, Guatemala was the first Central American country to block deportation flights from the U.S. in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But the country later reversed course and resumed those flights.

ICE must disclose its release numbers, a judge ruled. Here’s a development regarding my recent story about asylum seekers in ICE detention. My story noted that under the Trump administration, ICE has regularly denied asylum seekers parole, a mechanism through which they can be released while awaiting a decision on their case. The Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Department of Homeland Security after it discovered that the New Orleans ICE office, which handles parole requests for Louisiana and four other states, had granted parole in just two of the 130 requests it received in 2018. This wasn’t always the case. A decade ago, ICE granted about 90% of requests.

After the SPLC filed an emergency motion on March 31 seeking the release of asylum seekers, a federal judge ruled last week that immigration officials must disclose the number of parole requests they have granted or denied since the start of the pandemic, according to the Washington Post. ICE said it has directed its offices to identify detainees who are older than age 60 or have serious medical conditions for release. “What I’m looking for is, is it in fact happening on the ground?” U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg said. He ordered that ICE disclose the numbers by April 30.

Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 cases among ICE detainees is climbing rapidly. A week ago, ICE said the number of confirmed cases was 13. As of April 17, the total surged to 105, according to numbers posted on ICE’s website. There are now also four confirmed cases in Pine Prairie, the detention center I wrote about. The cases are scattered across the country, including in states like Georgia, Florida, New Jersey, and Arizona. ICE has also confirmed, as of April 17, that 25 employees at detention centers have also tested positive for the virus. 

Many immigrants are afraid of seeking COVID-19 treatment. Court filings reviewed by BuzzFeed News show that immigrants are avoiding COVID-19 testing and medical care in light of a new Trump administration policy that allows the government to deny green cards to immigrants if they rely on public benefits. The records were filed in a lawsuit that challenges the government’s new “public charge” rule. “I believe some of my farmworker patients have already been infected with COVID-19 by other farmworkers in the fields,” wrote one doctor in a court declaration. “Unfortunately, many of them are afraid to seek medical care due to the public charge rule.”
 

NEWS BREAK: SCENES FROM A STREET MARKET

Last year, Los Angeles Times reporter Esmeralda Bermudez captured the lively atmosphere of a street food market in the Piñata District. In each section of the story, she introduces us to the vendors, from El Churro Boy to the Cheese Cowboys. 

From the story: 

Every weekend, they flock here — in trucks, in vans, on bus, by foot — to put on a feast at the edge of downtown unlike any other in Los Angeles.

Cumbias boom from giant speakers. Carne asada smoke clogs the air. Fryers sizzle as vendors vie for your attention. Some dance, some sing, some get down on one knee and recite poetry. Others take you by the hand and pull you to their table: Tacos! Pambazos! Tortas! Come and eat, señores y señoras! I invite, you pay.

It’s street food theater that overwhelms the senses and follows few, if any, norms. All those who come hunting for piñatas tend to get swept up in the show — in the birria from Jalisco, pupusas from El Salvador, nieve from Oaxaca, guasanas from Michoacan.

Some days the health department rolls through and everyone runs with their carts, pots, pans, ice coolers and baskets. It’s a cat-and-mouse game that’s lived on for years on the streets of L.A., one expected to change soon as the city works to enforce new rules that took effect in January. 

Meanwhile, the peddlers of the Piñata District have created one of the most tantalizing spaces in the city, with some intriguing characters. There’s the Cheese Cowboys, El Churro Boy, El Chapo and the Abuelo of the Corn. There’s also El Cuba, who’s homeless and lives in a nearby tent. For tips, he hustles out a living as the market’s gofer, cleaning up before and after and running errands in between. 

Read the story here.
 

Your tips have been vital to our immigration coverage. Keep them coming: [email protected].  

– Laura C. Morel

Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.