After 4 Test Positive For Coronavirus At Downstate ICE Detention Center, Local Immigration Organization Calls On Feds To Release Medically Vulnerable Immigrants

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CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- After four people tested positive for coronavirus at a downstate county jail-turned-detention center, a Chicago-based immigration social justice organization is planning to file a federal lawsuit to call on the government to release medically vulnerable immigrants detained there.

The Pulaski County Detention Center is one of three county jails in Illinois contracted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold suspected undocumented immigrants, reported the Chicago Sun-Times. The three immigrants held at Pulaski are the first ICE detainees in the state to test positive for coronavirus.

The National Immigrant Justice Center is calling on ICE, Customs and Border Protection and the Bureau of Prisons to release inmates in federal prisons around the country, where hundreds of vulnerable immigrants are locked up facing deportation or criminal prosecution for immigration offenses. 

The center said the virus has quickly spread at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, where ICE reported at least seven detained immigrants had tested positive after an employee tested positive earlier and many others displaying symptoms of the virus.

"Over the past week, hundreds of people at Otay Mesa Detention Center and at Western Regional Detention Facility, a BOP facility operated by The GEO Group for pre-trial detainees facing federal charges, participated in hunger strikes to protest conditions and register their concerns over the spread of COVID19 in the facilities," said the center in an Apil 9 statement.

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There are about 145 people in custody at Pulaski facility and about 130 of whom are ICE detainees, facility administrator Damon Acuff told the Southern Illinoisan. He said that everyone in the custody of the facility is treated the same, and declined to say whether those in the facility's custody who tested positive for COVID-19 were jail inmates or ICE detainees, according to the report.

Local officials are joining the fight against the federal government to release immigrants from crowded detention centers and jails. U.S. Representative Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois fourth district, said Trump's failed response to the coronavirus pandemic has endangered the lives and safety of Americans and immigrants.

"Immigrants in detention centers are completely unprotected and terrified for their lives," García said in a statement. "Cramped conditions and the lack of proper hygenic supplies make detention centers ticking viral bombs. These facilities are inhumane, deadly, and they must release their detainees. Our response must be as indiscriminate as the virus, and ICE must release migrants in detention, clean these facilities, and ensure proper safety and health protocols are in place before resuming operations.”