ICE detainees are notified at the Adelanto Immigration Detention Center, which runs through Geo Group Inc. , in Adelanto, California, USA. Usa, April 13, 2017.
Lucy Nicholson / Photographic Archive / Reuters
As the coronavirus has spread to migrant detention centers across the country, thousands of other people locked up in various of those services have stopped eating, for several days, to draw attention to situations that they say, make them more vulnerable to the virus.
Approximately 21 immigrants detained through the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service have been detained by the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service. But it’s not the first time In the Yuba County Jail in northern San Francisco, they recently gone on hunger strike for about a week to verify that ICE and criminal officials took steps to prevent an outbreak.
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“Every day we wake up scared, thinking that if one of us hires him, we’ll all get it. We’d probably never see our families again.
“Every day we wake up scared, thinking that if one of us hires him, we’ll all get it,” said Eduardo Meléndez, 23, an ICE inmate in Yuba County Jail. “We probably wouldn’t be here to see our families again. “
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He and more than 2,000 immigrants at ICE’s facility in California, Florida, New Mexico, Ohio and states have refused to eat in protest since March, according to the Detention Watch Network, a defense group. Detainees also demanded more masks, soap and increased medical attention. .
Meanwhile, the ACLU has filed more than 40 lawsuits across the country to force the immigration government to release others under threat of serious illness. Other organizations, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, have also sued.
Nearly 5,500 other people detained through ICE across the country tested positive for coronavirus, according to the agency. Forty-five other detention centre workers were also infected, but this count does not come from personal institutions.
Coronavirus has not so far been diagnosed among ICE inmates in Yuba prison, but the virus has spread through two personal immigrant detention centers in California. Nearly three hundred inmates at Otay Mesa’s San Diego facility and Mesa Verde in Bakersfield were infected, he added. dozens of hospitalizations and a boy who died as a result of the disease.
In Yuba County Jail, one of the prisoners who refused to eat for six days, Juan José Erazo Herrera, 20, an asylum seeker from El Salvador, said Kelly Wells, a lawyer for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, representing him.
“Situations are terrible in general circumstances, and are now outrageously gruesome and harmful to others. No one should be in this institution, let alone other people waiting for an immigration procedure.
“Situations are dire in general circumstances, and now they are outrageously shocking and damaging to other people,” Wells said. “No one is in this institution, much less other people waiting for an immigration procedure. “
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Yuba prison began detaining immigrants on behalf of the federal government in 1994 and the contract generated nearly $6 million a year, starting in 2017, the sheriff’s department’s operating budget.
Immigrants detained in the criminal, some of whom reported having participated in some other hunger strike in July, need ICE and criminal officials to verify staff members entering and leaving the facility to detect COVID-19.
They also call for the end of new admissions from other county prisons, others who are housed with ICE inmates.
“This must be treated well before it’s too late,” said Meléndez, a Salvadoran immigrant whose circle of relatives brought him to California at the age of 8.
At least 3 members have tested positive for coronavirus since July, according to court disclosures from ICE officials, Wells said.
A spokeswoman for the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office said she may simply not check if any workers have contracted COVID-19 because they are confidential personnel.
“The Sheriff’s Department has taken a very proactive attitude in pandemic mitigation efforts in our prison. . . To date, no county inmate or ICE inmate has tested positive.
“The Sheriff’s Department has taken a very proactive approach to mitigation efforts in our pandemic-like crime,” Leslie Carbah said in a statement. “To date, no county inmate or ICE inmate has tested positive. “
For the pandemic peak, Yuba continued to gain inmates in states with COVID-19 outbreaks, adding two transfers in July from Solano and Pleasant Valley.
But the criminal has accepted a criminal movement since August and has taken prisoners of other county criminals only when required by law, Carbah said.
“It is vital to know that all new admissions, whether they are county inmates or inmates, will have to go through the 40 line for 14 days before being accommodated with the general population,” he said.
Yuba Prison has on-site medical care, 24 hours a day, and implements a “comprehensive sanitation and cleaning protocol based on the rules of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” he added.
However, several immigration detainees told KQED that the offender was filthy and that it took more than a week to see a nurse or doctor in case of illness, a complaint had by hunger strikers in Yuba in 2019.
“They don’t do any tests. They do not distribute hand sanitist. The social estinement is in this establishment . . . You put all those things together, it’s just the best typhoon that has to happen. “
Joe Mejía Rosas, 41, arrested through ICE on-site for about a year, said the criminal is not ready to properly handle a potentially fatal coronavirus outbreak.
“They don’t test. They do not distribute hand sanitist. Social estinement is in this institution,” said Mejía Rosas, who was released in July. “You put all those things together, it’s just the best typhoon that just happened. it has to happen. “
Mejía Rosas is one of nearly 50 ICE inmates ordered through a federal sentence to release on bail or probation from Yuba County Jail for the pandemic. The Green Detention Centre filed a lawsuit to force ICE to make adjustments to allow social estating of the facilities.
Earlier this month, Chhabria ordered ICE and Grupo GEO, the criminal company that owns Mesa Verde, to screen all inmates and workers for COVID-1nine. In weeks, the number of inmates testing positive increased from nine to five inmates. At least 28 staff members were also diagnosed, according to attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case.
Last week, the California Legislature passed a bill, AB 3228, that would allow Americans to sue for-profit criminal companies for violating the required care criteria. The law is sent to Governor Gavin Newsom’s office.
ICE reports that it has examined some 30,000 inmates across the country and is providing adequate medical care to others who have tested positive for the virus.
But security issues persist.
The judges ordered that more than 500 immigrants, along with others with diabetes and cancer, be released from detention centers across the United States, said Eunice Cho, an attorney for the ACLU’s National Prison Project. have ICE inmates released on bail or probation – that is, those who are threatened with serious illness from COVID-19.
“In some of our cases, the courts have also released Americans because the smaller the number of others in the facility, the more coverage you provide to everyone else in terms of avoiding COVID-19. “
“In some of our cases, the courts have also released others due to the fact that the smaller the number of others in the facility, the more coverage it gives everyone else in terms of the ability to save coVID-19, Cho said.
But many medical immigrants remain in detention, he added.
Six other people in ICE custody died as a result of COVID-19, adding two 60-year-old men, according to the agency. This summer, ICE said it began testing all newly arrived inmates on the facility it owns, but that doesn’t come with detention centers owned by for-profit companies, where the maximum number of immigrants is retained.
Editor’s note: This story gave the impression with KQED. Read the story here.
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