Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people locked up in immigration detention facilities have feared for their lives. Detainees have raised concerns over their inability to practice social distancing and lack of sanitation materials — even basic soap to clean their hands and cells. Instead of addressing these concerns, detention officers have responded to detainees’ pleas for help by punishing them, placing them in in solitary confinement, and even tear-gassing detainees asking for safer conditions.

This risk is imminent: Yesterday, news broke that two officers at the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana died of COVID-19 after facility officials barred them from wearing face masks. As of today, at least 449 immigrant detainees have now tested positive for the virus; 45 percent of ICE detainees tested have come up positive for COVID-19. These numbers are likely a severe undercount and will continue to grow. Earlier this month, ICE Acting Director Matt Albence confirmed to Congress that ICE had tested less than two percent of detainees nationwide. Albence also testified that ICE did not plan to release any additional detainees to slow the spread of COVID-19 in detention facilities, as such release could give the impression that the administration is “not enforcing our immigration laws.”

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in immigration detention facilities is a prime example of everything that has gone wrong with immigration detention. Justice Free Zones: Immigration Detention Under the Trump Administration, a new report released today by the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and the National Immigrant Justice Center, looks at the origins of this humanitarian crisis. The report shows how the Trump administration laid the groundwork for the current disaster of COVID-19 in immigration detention facilities. It is little coincidence that a disproportionate number of detention centers that now have confirmed cases of COVID-19 came online under the Trump administration. The report explores the vast expansion of immigration detention under the Trump administration; how private prison companies have increasingly profited off this growth; and the ways in which ICE has designed the system so detained people have no clear path out.  

While researching this report, our teams conducted site visits to five detention centers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arizona, all opened under the Trump administration. Three of these five detention facilities now have confirmed COVID-19 cases, including the Richwood Correctional Center, where two officers have already died from the virus. Today, 10 of the 28 ICE detention facilities with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are facilities that have opened under the Trump administration. And unless ICE quickly releases medically vulnerable people from detention, COVID-19 outbreaks at these facilities will are set to overwhelm local hospitals and intensive care units.

Based on interviews with 150 detained people, detention facility site visits, and analysis of countless records — including some we had to sue to access — Justice Free Zones documents the inhumane growth of the immigration detention machine under the Trump presidency. Our intention is not to suggest that other administrations did not have problematic policies and practices related to detention: The trend toward increased detention and the increased role of private operators has been underway since the early 2000s and rose sharply under the Obama administration. That said, the Trump administration’s approach to immigration detention has created a situation more dire than any in recent memory.  
 
Our research of detention centers opened under the Trump administration exposed sordid conditions and inadequate medical care, abuse and retaliation against detained people who dared speak up against abuse, and the impossible odds for receiving release from detention. These conditions that have set up a tinderbox for COVID-19 to explode.

At the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana, run by the private prison company LaSalle Corrections, we met a doctor who explained that that a request to see an outside specialist to set a broken bone could be booked “within a week.” We also saw the solitary confinement cell where Roylan Hernandez Diaz, an asylum seeker from Cuba, had died by suicide only weeks before our visit. During our visit, Richwood officials confirmed that there are no mental health professionals available on site at the facility. Forty-six detainees at Richwood have already tested positive for COVID-19; two guards have now died.

At the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, run by CoreCivic, Inc., we saw cruel treatment and neglect of immigrants with disabilities. Manuel Amaya Portillo, an asylum seeker with disabilities affecting his mobility who made repeated requests for a wheelchair, which staff did not address, reported that medical staff locked him in the medical unit and gave him sedatives during a facility inspection tour by government-contracted outside inspectors. Other detainees at Winn also reported being locked up in solitary confinement for over a week after talking to journalists about conditions at the facility. Three detainees at Winn have now tested positive for COVID-19.

At La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, also run by CoreCivic, Inc., a Honduran asylum seeker told us that another detainee was grabbed by the head and slammed against the wall by officers for taking papers out of his belongings on his first day of detention. People at La Palma reported water leaking into cells, gray drinking water, clogged toilets that were only a foot from the beds, and poor ventilation. Twenty-four detainees at La Palma have already tested positive for COVID-19.

At Jackson Parish Correctional Center in Jonesboro, Louisiana, run by LaSalle, many detainees reported that they did not have soap for bathing or cleaning supplies for their cells or bathrooms — even before COVID-19. Several men at Richwood described a recent scabies outbreak, during which they were stripped and sprayed with chemicals by guards. Several people detained at Winn reported black mold growing on the walls and leaks in the roof that would soak peoples’ beds.

To date, the ACLU and its affiliates have filed over 30 cases around the country to free people from immigration detention in light of the COVID-19 crisis. The mass growth of the ICE detention machine — as well as the horrific conditions inside them and the huge profits being made off detained people — are not normal.

We will not allow these horrors in detention to be normalized. We will not stop fighting for the rights of the people who are caged. It is time for our nation’s immigration system to move away from its reliance on incarceration for management of a civil system. Instead, ICE should utilize alternatives to detention that are more humane, efficient, and cost-effective. We must ensure that Congress reduce funding to ICE for detention operations and shift to community-based alternatives to immigration detention that are not driven by profit.

Eunice Cho, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU

A month ago, Congress gave the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) increased authority to reduce the federal prison population. On March 29th, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), providing DOJ and BOP with the ability to expand home confinement eligibility. Then, Attorney General William Barr “applaud[ed] the substantial steps taken” by DOJ and BOP to “move vulnerable inmates out of these institutions” in an April 3 memo.
 
Barr’s applause came too soon. In the weeks following his memo, DOJ and BOP have done little more than issue confusing and conflicting guidance around who is eligible for release. Congress must intervene with the Emergency Community Supervision Act, which would address some of the uncertainty. The bill would provide explicit instruction to BOP on how to reduce the federal prison population in the midst of a “national emergency relating to a communicable disease.”     
 
The Emergency Community Supervision Act (S 3579 and HR 6400) was introduced by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) last month. It requires BOP to immediately place vulnerable individuals in home confinement or other community supervision outside of prison. The bill identifies “vulnerable individuals” as those who are pregnant – like Andrea Circle Bear, who gave birth in federal custody earlier this month and then died from COVID-19 yesterday; those with underlying health issues; and those who are age 50 or older. These are the very populations that public health experts argue should have their sentences commuted by the president in response to COVID-19.
 
While Sen. Booker believes the federal government has “an obligation to do everything we can to prevent the spread of this deadly disease, and that means moving certain incarcerated people to community supervision,” DOJ and BOP are falling far short of this responsibility. Since Barr’s April 3 memo, the number of people released to home confinement increased by just half of 1 percent, according to The Marshall Project. And with BOP flip flopping twice last week on who is eligible for home confinement, it is unlikely this percentage will increase without Congress’ intervention.     
 
With 30 deaths in BOP, and a staff death that BOP is not officially reporting, as well as 1,600 incarcerated persons and staff testing positive for COVID-19, there is no time for DOJ and BOP incompetency. Congress must go beyond the authority it provided to DOJ and BOP under the CARES Act and explicitly legislate reduction of the federal prison population, as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) called for during Friday, April 24’s Congressional Black Caucus town hall on incarceration and COVID-19. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then echoed Lee’s call on MSNBC on Sunday.  
 
Congress must advance the Emergency Community Supervision Act with the next COVID-19 relief package. Congressional oversight of BOP from both sides of the aisle reveals no other choice. In addition to requiring BOP to release vulnerable populations to community supervision, the Emergency Community Supervision Act limits the use of pretrial detention and in-person supervised release. It also prohibits the use of incarceration for technical violations of supervised release. In addition to reducing the federal prison population, Congress should legislate incentives for states to reduce their jail and prison populations.  
 
Reducing jail and prison populations in the wake of COVID-19 is not a partisan issue. Groups across the ideological spectrum have asked all levels of the federal government to take action. At this moment, it appears that Congress is the only body that appreciates the life or death consequences of not decarcerating; that tens of thousands more people will die in jails, prisons, and communities without action. Congress can protect those lives by passing the Emergency Community Supervision Act when it legislates additional COVID-19 relief for the country.

Kanya Bennett, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office,
& Charlotte Resing, Policy Analyst, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

No one should have to choose between their health and their vote, but during the Wisconsin primary, an estimated 19,000 Milwaukeeans were forced to risk their health to cast their primary ballots. Already, at least seven positive COVID-19 cases have been linked to in-person voting in Milwaukee, including one poll worker who may have interacted with hundreds of other voters, and 19 cases have been linked to the primary statewide. Wisconsin is a preview of what could happen in November if we don’t act. That’s why we’re fighting in the halls of Congress and in courts across the country to adopt common sense solutions to protect every voter’s right to safely cast a ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic and to protect their rights while doing so.

To protect our democracy, it’s imperative that we expand early voting, allow every eligible voter to vote by mail, and reduce the logistical, financial, and health barriers that inhibit voting by mail. Currently, there are approximately 16 states that do not allow no-excuse absentee voting by mail. In a number of these states, the limitations are codified in state law or within the states’ constitution, making litigation and congressional action necessary to allow people to safely vote this election cycle.

Advocacy

At the national level, we’re calling on Congress to increase federal funding for elections administration, and to mandate national standards for no-excuse absentee voting and a minimum 14-day early vote period, to ensure that every eligible American can vote safely in November. An increase in federal resources ⁠is necessary to help states safely administer elections and process a surge of mail-in ballots in a timely and secure manner.

We are also urging municipal, local, and state-level policymakers to expand access to absentee ballots and extend early voting periods so that their constituents can avoid physical polling locations or minimize their interactions with other voters if they choose to vote in person. Officials from across party lines have already expanded eligibility to vote by mail to all voters in a wide range of states, including Alabama, Indiana, New Hampshire, New York, and West Virginia. We’re bolstering these bipartisan efforts to expand access to vote by mail through litigation in a series of states.

Litigation

In Texas, we filed a lawsuit with coalition partners, seeking to expand Texans’ access vote by mail.

In Missouri and South Carolina, we are similarly suing to make absentee mail-in balloting available to all eligible voters. Vote by mail will be the safest option for many during this pandemic.

We are also challenging states that have burdensome, unsafe, or financially prohibitive restrictions to voting by mail. We are suing in Virginia, Missouri, and South Carolina so that voters can vote by mail without having to get a witness signature on their ballots ⁠— an unnecessary requirement and a clear violation of public health experts’ social distancing recommendations. Beyond challenging witness signature requirements, we are in court over Georgia’s failure to provide prepaid postage on mail-in absentee ballot envelopes, and in Montana, we’re suing to ensure that all voters can get assistance when sending their ballots to election officials. Voters shouldn’t have to go to extraordinary lengths, withstand financial pressure, or put themselves in danger to cast their ballots. 

In this tumultuous and uncertain time, one thing we know is that we must prepare for the general election in November.

We’ll keep fighting to safeguard both the nation’s health, and our democracy.

Dale Ho, Director, Voting Rights Project, ACLU
Sonia Gill, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU