About 900 guards and 3,500 migrates are infected with the coronavirus in detention centers.
Several CireCivic employees have died from COVID 19.
Photo: Manuel Ocaño / Impremedia
About 900 guards and nearly 3,500 migrants in immigration detention centers have fallen ill with COVID 19, according to executives at private prisons that lock people up under contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The corporations ‘information was presented at executives’ hearings before a subcommittee on national security.
“It is clear that in recent months ICE and its contractors have not taken this outbreak seriously and have not treated it seriously enough,” said Subcommittee Chair Kathleen Rice.
The legislator added that in addition to the conditions in which detainees are found, employees of the four private prison corporations have complained of rationing of personal protective equipment, inadequate medical care and delayed testing.
In addition, ICE reported this Thursday that 3,496 migrants detained in their custody suffer from COVID 19.
Of these 1,169 are currently in isolation, some of them hospitalized, although this is not clearly specified.
During the pandemic three migrants victims of the coronavirus have died. One at the Stewart Detention Center in Atlanta, one in Glades County, Florida, and one in Otay Mesa, California.
Those nearly 3,500 infected migrants that ICE has in their custody are not the only ones with CIVID 19 in the detention centers. In each of these prisons, the federal Marshall holds an indeterminate number of migrants who have contracted the disease.
At the hearing before the National Security Subcommittee of the Congress for Border Security, the four private prison companies that detain migrants recognized that they have guards infected with COVID 19.
CoreCivic, which manages the Otay Mesa Detention Center, said more than 500 of its employees contracted the disease that causes the coronavirus.
The Geo Group said it has 167 guards with COVID 19. De La Salle said 144 of its guards fell ill with the coronavirus. And the Administration and Training Corporation (MTC) recognized that 73 of its employees are infected.
According to the Border Security budget data sheet, the administration of President Donald Trump grants these four private prison corporations an annual budget of $ 2.4 billion. This equates to more than $ 6.5 million every 24 hours.
The executives said at the hearing before the subcommittee that they accepted detainees who were transferred from other facilities due to the possibility of contagion in their centers and they do not know if among the transferred there were infected people.
They also said they did not have a way to detect cases among people who did not show symptoms.
CoreCivic is the corporation with the most cases. According to data from that company, 2,500 migrants have been infected in their detention centers.
However, the CoreCivic parent reported $ 25 million in profits between April and May, when the pandemic was already spreading across much of the country.
In March, a CoreCivic employee in Otay Mesa tested positive on COVID 19. Two days later, another guard and a migrant were reported infected.
Since then, the detention center has been among those reporting the most infections.
In April, two guards filed a lawsuit against the company because it did not provide them with adequate protective equipment, although their job duties required contact with other people.
Several CireCivic employees have died from COVID 19, but the corporation does not release information to the press.
