First case of coronavirus confirmed in a immigration detention center

A person was tested positive for coronavirus Thursday in a Paris administrative detention center (CRA), AFP learned from concordant sources, the first case of contamination confirmed in these places where migrants are locked up awaiting expulsion. "A selected person has just been tested positive for Covid-19 in the CRAs of Paris-Vincennes, where 54 people are still locked up," said Assfam, an association which provides legal support to foreigners in this center on Thursday.

"The health and lives of those detained are endangered in these centers, where the preventive and protective sanitary measures against Covid-19 are not, and cannot be, implemented" , specifies the association which exercised his right of withdrawal a few weeks ago to protest against the retention in the background of a pandemic, but who pursues an activity "at a distance" .

Read also: LIVE - Coronavirus: the number of resuscitation patients is down, more than 12,000 dead

The infected person was "isolated in a single room" awaiting transfer to a hospital structure, confirmed a police source. This is the "first confirmed case in an ARC" , reacted David Rohi, retention specialist at the association La Cimade, intervening in many ARCs. According to him, the contaminated detainee entered detention on March 7 and was "therefore contaminated inside" : "This is exactly what we feared," he added.

In recent weeks, the continuation of the activity of CRAs has been the subject of a standoff between the government, on the one hand, and migrant defense organizations and lawyers, on the other. The State Council settled the debate at the end of March, by deciding that these establishments could remain open, judging that the retention in detention is not a “factor of evolution of the epidemic” , contrary to what asserted several organizations calling for "temporary closure" .

Read also: Individual or collective, immunity will be the key to deconfinement

In recent weeks, the CRA has gradually emptied, prompted by decisions of release by judges.

Of some 1,900 places, only 184 people were retained there Thursday, said Christophe Castaner earlier before a committee of the National Assembly. "I did not wish to close the CRAs because there are prisoners leaving the prison, (...) because we continue to proceed in certain cases, and it is true that it is much more difficult, to evictions, " added the Minister of the Interior. The Council of State, he insisted, "considered that the measures that we implemented (...) did not allow to consider that the health of those who were in the CRA was threatened" .