Lack of Care



	As many have feared, COVID-19 is marching through immigration detention facilities — and making its way south of the border.

	But before we get to that, an important lawsuit: The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) has filed a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of U.S. citizens who were left out of the CARES Act stimulus package because they are married to immigrants without Social Security numbers, reports Dianne Solis for The Dallas Morning News. The lawsuit, which names Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the IRS and others as defendants, points out that families with an immigrant spouse are more vulnerable to the pandemic’s economic fallout because they are clustered in jobs with hotels, food services, health care, waste services, and retail trade — all areas where the biggest job layoffs have occurred. “These are U.S. citizens with U.S. children who are standing in the same shoes as other U.S. citizens but for the fact that their spouse doesn’t have a Social Security number,” said Nina Perales, MALDEF’s vice president of litigation.

	Welcome to Thursday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

	CAMPAIGN – Yesterday, the Forum joined a broad coalition of faith, civil rights, business and immigration organizations to launch the #AllofUS campaign, highlighting the role of immigrants in the country’s coronavirus response. “The six-figure campaign … includes an ad buy to reach Americans nationwide,” reports Anagha Srikanth for The Hill. “The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness of the role immigrants play with information and positive messages. One in 4 physicians and 1 in 6 nurses are immigrants, according to the campaign, as well as 40 percent of food packers and 73 percent of farmworkers.”

	LACK OF CARE – A review of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) internal documents obtained by the Project On Government Oversight revealed new information about the deaths of two immigrants in 2017, Joel Rose reports for NPR, raising more concerns about ICE’s treatment of immigrants in its custody during the COVID-19 pandemic. The documents show that inadequate medical care was a factor in the deaths of two immigrants who died in ICE custody, one in a New Jersey detention center and one in Louisiana. Each of the two facilities has now confirmed cases of coronavirus among staff and detainees. “Our concern is that this virus is spreading and these are facilities that have a history of not meeting the medical needs of the people being detained,” said Amber Khan, director of health justice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.  

	FACILITY STAFF – Meanwhile, two guards at an ICE detention center in Louisiana have died after contracting the coronavirus, Nomaan Merchant reports for the Associated Press, further adding to concerns the U.S. is not doing enough to protect ICE detainees and staff. Prison officials at the facility “told employees they would 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,’” according to a memo an employee shared with the AP.

	“WE DON’T WANT TO DIE” – ICE transferred dozens of immigrant detainees from jails in Pennsylvania and New York to one in Texas earlier this month — and 21 of those detainees have now tested positive for COVID-19, reports Hamed Aleaziz for BuzzFeed News. “The idea, it appears, was to protect these immigrants, and other detainees, from the spread of coronavirus by reducing jail populations in the Northeast to create more ‘distancing.’ But in the time since their journey, nearly two dozen detainees who were moved have tested positive for COVID-19.” ICE officials took the detainees’ temperatures before transferring them from two detention centers that were already dealing with outbreaks of the coronavirus. “We don’t know why we were sent here,” said Behzad Jalili, one of the detainees who was transferred. He’s worried that the journey put both him and others at risk: “We are not camels or sheep. We are human. We don’t want to die. We don’t want to be forgotten.”

	DEPORTING COVID-19 – Approximately 24 migrants deported from the U.S. to Colombia have since tested positive for the coronavirus, report Arshad Mohammed, Julia Symmes Cobb, and Frank Jack Daniel for Reuters, adding to tensions with Latin American and Caribbean governments. “In Guatemala, at least 103 migrants deported by the United States on a handful of flights in March and April have so far tested positive for the coronavirus,” per the story. “That is around a fifth of all cases in the Central American country.” Other infections have been identified in deportees in Haiti, Mexico and Jamaica. Further underscoring the risk to staff and communities, 14 employees at the ICE facility where the deportation flight to Colombia originated have tested positive for the virus as of April 28.  

	KEEPING US HEALTHY – Our latest “Only in America” podcast series, “Keeping Us Healthy,” will look at the contributions of immigrants in the health care sector. We’ll speak to professionals facing the coronavirus pandemic firsthand and hear from them about how we can keep our communities healthy. Stay tuned for more next week.

	Stay safe, stay healthy,

	Ali