Last week, my colleague Patrick Michels and I brought you the story about the lengths that the New Mexico Department of Health went to to provide COVID-19 assistance to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – and the federal agency’s disinterest in accepting that help.

When we were working on our story, there were no active cases inside the Otero County Processing Center. It’s a point the company that runs Otero, Management and Training Corp., has made in pushing back against the story. In a letter to us, a spokesperson said, “For several weeks, we’ve had zero active COVID-19 cases among staff or detainees.”

But on Sept. 11, a day after we published our reporting, the health department reported that two detainees are now positive for the virus. Management and Training Corp.’s letter was sent Sept. 15.

Emails we obtained showed that New Mexico’s top health officials clearly were frustrated with the response from ICE in May. The federal agency wasn’t testing detainees exposed to the virus, failed to secure its own test kits and continued transferring detainees despite warnings from New Mexico health staff that such movement could spread the virus. ICE won’t say whether it continues to transfer detainees in and out of Otero. 

In all, 152 detainees have tested positive inside Otero since the start of the pandemic. It’s one of the highest totals at any ICE facility.

Read our story here.

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT IN GEORGIA

This week, a nurse dropped a series of bombshell accusations about dangerous medical practices at the Irwin County Detention Center in rural Georgia.

The whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, says staff at Irwin underreported COVID-19 cases, failed to test detainees exhibiting symptoms, ignored medical complaints and transferred detainees to other facilities while they were awaiting COVID-19 test results. Those allegations were detailed in a letter Wooten sent to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General on Sept. 8 and were first reported by The Intercept.

Then Wooten and several immigrant women submitted a complaint that alleges many detainees have undergone questionable hysterectomies, a procedure that removes part or all of the uterus, often without an interpreter present or a clear explanation about why the procedure was needed. The legal advocacy group Project South submitted the complaint to the inspector general’s office on the women’s behalf. The gynecologist’s name wasn’t included in the complaint, but Prism reported this week that it is Dr. Mahendra Amin, who is affiliated with Coffee Regional Medical Center and Irwin County Hospital in Georgia.

As Prism reporter Tina Vasquez reported:

It is unclear if Amin is financially benefiting from the procedures. The gynecologist was once a co-defendant in a lawsuit in which he and other doctors were ordered to pay more than half a million dollars to resolve allegations that they caused false claims to be submitted to Medicare and Medicaid. The nature of the doctor’s current agreement with ICE and ICDC is also unclear.

Vasquez has also described a “complicated picture” of Amin and Wooten. One migrant told Vasquez that Wooten often made fun of detainees and was “complicit” in the mistreatment that immigrants faced at Irwin. And outside the facility, Amin wields a lot of power within the medical community in Douglas, Georgia, where he is “one of the only OBGYNs in the area to accept Medicare and Medicaid.” 

We’ll keep updating you on this story in the coming weeks. As my colleague Aura Bogado tweeted this week after talking to a source inside Irwin, “there's more to come.”

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS WE’RE FOLLOWING

The Trump administration has expelled 8,800 migrant children during the pandemic. According to Reuters, the Department of Justice recently acknowledged in court documents that the government has expelled thousands of children who arrived at the U.S. border since March 20. Early in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order that allows the government to rapidly “expel” people – including children – rather than keep them in U.S. custody, where they may appear before an immigration judge. The practice of expelling children circumvents decades-old policies that require that children be placed in licensed government shelters and eventually released to a family member or other suitable sponsor. As of Aug. 11, less than 900 children were being held in these shelters. In recent months, news outlets such as The New York Times and the Associated Press have also reported that the government has held migrant children in hotel rooms under the supervision of adults not trained in child care, before sending them back to their home countries.

ICE flew detainees to Virginia in order to transport tactical teams to Washington, D.C., protests. Officials who spoke with The Washington Post said the sole purpose of a June 2 flight that carried detained immigrants from Florida and Arizona was to transport agents to the capital to respond to racial justice protests in the area, “circumventing restrictions on the use of charter flights for employee travel.” After the detainees arrived at a detention facility in Farmville, Virginia, dozens of the new arrivals tested positive for COVID-19. Detainees in Farmville have experienced the worst outbreak of any ICE facility in the country, with 339 detainees testing positive so far. In early August, the Associated Press reported that 259 of Farmville’s 298 detainees had the virus. ICE maintains that it transferred the detainees to avoid overcrowding at facilities in Florida and Arizona.

ICE is resuming deportation arrests. After scaling down arrests as COVID-19 cases climbed across the country, agents are now putting more immigrants in custody, The New York Times reports. Tony Pham, the new interim ICE director, says the renewed enforcement efforts target immigrants who have “preyed on men, women and children in our communities, committing serious crimes and, at times, repeatedly hurting their victims.” But a Times review of government data shows that ICE is arresting many undocumented immigrants who are convicted of minor offenses or no crimes at all. They’re also easier to locate because, as the Times writes, “they are not trying to evade law enforcement, even if they have outstanding deportation orders.”

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

– Laura C. Morel

Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.