I wanted to start off this week’s newsletter by saying thank you.


I wanted to start off this week’s newsletter by saying thank you.

Thank you for following our work the last few weeks as we all live through an incredibly stressful and uncertain period. We appreciate the time you spend reading and listening to our stories chronicling how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the U.S. immigration system.

Right now, we’re working hard – digging into documents and contacting sources – to bring you new stories. In the meantime, we want to share some of the biggest immigration news of the past week.

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The Trump administration wants to suspend immigration during the COVID-19 crisis.

President Donald Trump tweeted ([link removed]) Monday night that he would suspend immigration into the U.S. “in light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy.” In a briefing the next day, he said he would stop ([link removed]) the issuance of green cards for 60 days in an effort to “put unemployed Americans first in line for jobs.” The order, signed on Wednesday, will not affect temporary workers or immigrants already in the U.S. seeking to become permanent residents, but will impact immigrants with visas that would allow them to be reunited with family in the U.S., as well as immigrants seeking employment here. “Legal permanent residents who are trying to bring their spouses and children into the country also will be unable to do so,” The Washington Post
([link removed]) reports. “The combination of restrictions we have put in place since January of 2020 have effectively barred a large section of immigrants from entering the United States already,” Muzaffar A. Chishti, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told The New York Times. ([link removed]) “This is just one more.” The order is the latest in a string of Trump administration policies that aim to restrict immigration, including the so-called Muslim ban, returning asylum seekers to Mexico and separating migrant families under the “zero tolerance” policy in the summer of 2018.
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ICE must consider more detained immigrants for release, a judge rules.

U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday to consider releasing all detainees at higher risk of complications from the virus. In his ruling ([link removed]) , Bernal said the agency showed “medical indifference” and has caused “a month-long delay in developing a systemwide plan to combat the pandemic in the close quarters of detention buildings,” The Washington Post ([link removed]) reports. Under Bernal’s ruling, detainees who are over 55, pregnant or have serious medical conditions should be considered for release. ICE announced April 15 that it had released nearly 700 immigrants. Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 cases within ICE detention facilities continues to surge each day. As of April 23, 297 detainees ([link removed]) and 35 ICE
correctional staff have tested positive for the virus. As this has played out, we’ve spoken to detainees ([link removed]) who feared an outbreak would be inevitable inside ICE facilities and experts who say the detention centers are breeding grounds ([link removed]) for infectious diseases.
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The U.S. is deporting thousands of immigrants during the pandemic.

In March alone, ICE deported nearly 18,000 people, The New York Times reports ([link removed]) . ICE officials have said that the agency is checking deportees’ temperatures before they’re placed on flights and that anyone with a temperature of 99 degrees or above would be sent to a medical provider. Last week, we told you that many immigrants deported to Guatemala ([link removed]) have tested positive for the virus, according to Guatemalan officials. The U.S. has since stopped those flights pending an investigation into the country’s claims, according to The Times.
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The Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center is run by The GEO Group, one of the nation’s largest private prison contractors. Credit: Patrick Michels/Reveal


** ICE RELEASES SOME DETAINEES HELD IN LOUISIANA FACILITIES
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Since April 4, ICE has released 38 detainees on parole from several Louisiana detention centers, according to court records filed by the government in response to a federal judge’s ruling.

Four of those detainees were released from the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center, where asylum seekers spoke to me ([link removed]) recently about their fears of a COVID-19 outbreak inside the facility. Fifteen detainees at Pine Prairie had tested positive for the virus as of April 23, according to ICE.

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 ([link removed]) 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 Southern Poverty Law Center filed an emergency motion March 31 seeking the release of asylum seekers, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg ruled ([link removed]) that immigration officials must disclose the number of parole requests they have granted or denied since the start of the pandemic.

The court filings submitted in the case this week were meant to comply with that ruling. In a court declaration ([link removed]) , John Hartnett, deputy field office director for the New Orleans ICE office, said his office has no way of tracking how many detainees it has reviewed for release. “There is no reliable method for tracking all the cases,” he wrote. The 38 detainees released as of April 4 were class members under the Southern Poverty Law Center lawsuit.

At the 12 detention centers under the New Orleans office’s jurisdiction, Hartnett wrote, about 5,500 immigrants remain in custody.

Read my story here. ([link removed])

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** NEWS BREAK: A BUNGLED BURGLARY
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Whenever I’m struggling with writer’s block, I always go back to the Crime Scene columns ([link removed]) written by New York Times reporter Michael Wilson. The story I’m sharing with you this week is one of my favorites.

In the spring of 2013, a burglar snuck into a New York apartment building and walked out with two packages. One box contained Crate & Barrel wine glasses and the other two brick-shaped items wrapped in aluminum foil.

From The New York Times story:

Mr. Purdy has heard all the jokes. He laughed along with the police later that day, Feb. 19, when he met officers at his apartment and showed them the fruitcake. He laughed days later with the grand jurors who heard evidence in the case. A fruitcake, I know, right? Ha, ha, ha!

But he was not amused. The very night of the burglary, when the officers left his apartment, he opened one of the foil bricks and cut off a slab. The outer crust gave way to a moist blonde interior, shot through with red and green maraschino cherries that glistened so brightly it seemed he could turn off the lights and read by them. An invisible mushroom cloud of rum fumes rose from the cake.

He ate. And thought of his mother. She had sent the fruitcake from her kitchen in Mountain View, Calif., as she does every year. She makes fruitcakes for everyone she knows.

“Hundreds,” Mr. Purdy said. “Church groups. Her choir. Her college roommate.”

And her son. “My mom makes a really great fruitcake,” he said. He was not just saying that. The package arrived almost two months after the holidays. He asks for a second batch. Every year.

Mr. Purdy, the director of digital products at Sports Illustrated, is married. He was asked, delicately, if he was perhaps the primary fruitcake enthusiast in the home. “That would be a giant understatement,” he said.

Read the story here. ([link removed])

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– Laura C. Morel
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