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Consumption is flourishing in immigration detention centers across the country, yet another sign that America is grinding its way through a second Gilded Age. It’s better known now by its other name, tuberculosis, and it’s the most deadly infectious disease in the world, the World Health Organization says, responsible for killing 1.5 million people each year, even though it’s both preventable and curable.
Detainees have tested positive for tuberculosis at the Anchorage Correctional Complex in Alaska and Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, according to news reports. One immigrant died days after a diagnosis of the disease in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, an ICE death notice shows. Detainees may have been exposed at the Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, according to a lawsuit. And in Washington state, several possible cases of tuberculosis in the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma were reported this month to state authorities, and one man was hospitalized for it, his attorney said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not respond to a request for comment. Officials have previously downplayed the presence of tuberculosis, the reports show, including responding to questions about the cases in Tacoma by saying, “This false claim needs to stop.”
The same conditions that allowed the disease to flourish at the end of the 1800s are hallmarks of immigration detention, medical experts and immigration advocates told the Prospect, including overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a breakdown of health protocols.
Tuberculosis outbreaks can allow the disease to become more resistant to treatment, one of the major global concerns about the massive outbreaks in post-Soviet Russia. And, of course, the disease doesn’t recognize the limits of prison walls, Dr. Leonardo Martinez, assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University, noted. If someone leaves ICE with an active case of tuberculosis, they can transfer it to the larger population. “By protecting people in carceral settings,” he said, “we’re protecting people outside of carceral settings.” |
