The number of immigrants currently detained in Immigration Service (ICE) jails and infected with COVID-19 increased 41% in recent weeks, according to federal data reviewed by Noticias Telemundo.
On March 17, ICE had 479 people positive for the virus in custody, some isolated and others under monitoring.
That number rose to 674 on April 5.
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The increase in infections in prison occurs right in the middle of an intense vaccination campaign - more than 107 million people have received at least one dose - throughout the country.
However, in ICE prisons,
the number of detainees who have received the COVID-19 vaccine is "limited" according to an ICE official told this medium
.
So far, vaccines in prisons are conditional on availability and vaccination priorities in the state where immigrants are detained.
As of April 2, ICE had 14,300 immigrants held in 125 prisons across the country.
The increase in COVID-19 cases in prison is remarkable considering that the number of detainees has remained almost the same in recent weeks:
14,216 registered on March 19.
"Since the COVID-19 outbreak began, ICE has taken extensive measures to protect all detainees, staff and their contractors," agency spokeswoman Danielle Bennett told Noticias Telemundo.
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The official explained that
the agency tests for COVID-19 before entering immigrants to prison and reduced the number of detainees in custody
.
Indeed, the current number of undocumented persons in the custody of the Immigration Service is the lowest in recent years, according to federal data.
But not all of the releases were the initiative of ICE.
Thousands of undocumented immigrants were released from prison after a California judge ordered the agency to consider releasing immigrants who are most at risk of complications from COVID-19.
As of March 22, ICE had released 3,741 people by court order since the pandemic began.
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Since ICE began testing for COVID-19 in February 2020, it has detected 11,000 positive cases among the nearly 127,000 immigrants who were tested.
In general, vaccination within prisons in the United States progresses slowly.
Nationally, less than 20% of state and federal prisoners have been vaccinated, according to a report by the AP agency and The Marshall Project.
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Since the first COVID-19 cases were detected inside prisons in March 2020, around 3 in 10 inmates have tested positive and 2,500 have died.
Some prisoners have gone to court to demand to be vaccinated.
In February this year, an Oregon federal judge ordered the Georgia state prison system to vaccinate all inmates who wanted a COVID-19 vaccine, in the first court decision of its kind.
In the case of the detained immigrants, nine have died in ICE custody, after being infected with the virus.
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In December 2020, dozens of immigrants held in three ICE detention centers in New Jersey decided to go on a hunger strike to pressure authorities for their release and to protest the risk they faced of becoming ill from COVID-19.
“It is an inhuman experience (...) They treat you very badly ... they throw you in a cell where there is urine, sometimes there is no water, it is dirty, there are people who drink water from the
toilets
.
Those places are hell on earth, ”Luis, a Honduran immigrant who went 35 days without food, told Noticias Telemundo, until he was released in February.
