Skip to content

Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020

Has the coronavirus put ICE detainees’ health at increased risk?

Jiyul Kim, Gigafact
yes

Immigration detainees, as with other confined populations, would appear to be especially vulnerable to the coronavirus. On Aug. 11 a federal judge barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement from transferring detainees to a Virginia facility where more than 75% of 339 in custody have tested positive, pending results of a Centers for Disease Control report.

An advocacy group, the Vera Institute of Justice, has estimated that infections could be up to 15 times higher than initially reported. In July Houston Public Media said detainees in Texas are 15 times more likely to contract the virus than other Texans, and that detainees said ICE didn't provide adequate social distancing and medical care.

Reports from other states indicate similar issues. An ICE spokesman told the Washington Post that detainee health “is one of the agency’s highest priorities.”

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

See all fact briefs

Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.