COVID cases spiking in migrant detention centers, report says

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Migrant detention centers are seeing a spike in coronavirus cases as the number of detainees has almost doubled in recent months. 

As of last week, more than 26,000 people are in custody at the U.S. facilities, compared to only 14,000 in April, according to the New York Times. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reports that upward of 7,500 new coronavirus cases have been recorded in the centers during that time period – accounting for more than 40% of overall infections in ICE facilities since the onset of the pandemic early last year. 

Migrants in a green area outside of a soft-sided detention center after they were taken into custody while trying to sneak into the U.S., in Donna, Texas, in March. (Associated Press) (AP)

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"On-site medical professionals are credited with reducing the risk of further spreading the disease by immediately testing, identifying and isolating the exposed detainees to mitigate the spread of infection," Paige Hughes, an ICE spokeswoman, told the New York Times, adding that all new detainees are tested for the virus upon entry.  

But public health officials said to the newspaper that migrants who are captured are transported by bus – and therefore are in close proximity to one another – prior to being tested at the facilities. 

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As of May, only around 20% of detainees being processed at the centers have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the New York Times, citing ICE data. 

"You have people coming in and out of the facility, into communities where incomplete vaccination allows these variants to flourish, and then you bring them inside the facilities, and that variant will spread," said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor and director of the Covid Behind Bars Data Project at University of California, Los Angeles.