COVID cases surge at immigration detention center in Georgia, ICE data shows

This article features Government Accountability Project’s whistleblower clients, Drs. Scott Allen and Josiah “Jody” Rich, and was originally published here.

The number of COVID-19 infections at a federal immigration detention center in Georgia has increased significantly amid the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant, according to data released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, about 140 miles south of Atlanta, reported 141 cases of COVID-19 within the facility as of Feb. 3 and that the facility has recorded 4 deaths related to COVID-19. Those cases make up almost 12% of the detention center’s average daily population of 1,183 detainees.

The number of COVID-19 cases was even higher toward the end of January, when ICE was monitoring 213 cases within the facility, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

In total, the detention center has recorded 1,436 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, ICE said on its website. The facility has had the highest number of detainee deaths out of any federal immigration detention facility, according to data on the website, though the data notes that COVID-19 may not be the official cause of death in those cases, as any death reported after a positive COVID-19 diagnosis is included in this figure.

The circumstances seem to echo those in federal prisons — in December, a man incarcerated in a Fort Worth prison became the 16th inmate to die of COVID-19. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said that, as of Feb. 4, there are 5,588 federal inmates who currently have COVID-19, and 284 federal inmates have died of the disease since the start of the pandemic.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative, incarcerated people are more likely to become infected with COVID-19 due to several factors, including overcrowding within facilities, violence and abuse within jails and prisons, and many incarcerated people lack access to quality medical care and tend to be in worse health than the general population.

Those circumstances also often exist within immigration detention facilities, The Washington Post reported. The spread of the omicron variant has made circumstances even riskier for detainees, who may not have access to booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, the outlet reported.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued ICE on Jan. 31 on behalf of five detainees who had requested and been denied booster shots, according to a news release from the organization. The ACLU noted in the statement that ICE had only administered booster shots to 671 detainees out of roughly 22,000 who were incarcerated at the time.

“ICE does not have policies or procedures to ensure that eligible people in its over 200 detention facilities are identified or are provided a booster shot,” the organization said in the release.

ICE’s handling of the pandemic was also previously criticized by two whistleblowers who investigated detention centers for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. In a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson, the two whistleblowers – physicians Scott Allen and Jody Rich – urged the agencies to offer booster shots to immigration detainees immediately.

ICE has not responded to the whistleblower letter or the ACLU lawsuit. McClatchy News has reached out for comment and is awaiting a response.

“Booster vaccinations are now the standard and are a top priority of the federal government’s response to present and future COVID threats,” Allen and Rich wrote in the letter. “DHS does not appear to have adopted this approach even in the face of the high, well-documented risks associated with detention settings.”

“COVID has presented a most daunting challenge, especially in high-risk congregate settings such as immigration detention,” the letter continued. “But ICE’s failure to implement a plan for providing boosters to detained immigrants is inexplicable in light of available science, government public health recommendations, and their widespread availability.”

Franco Clement, an immigrant from Liberia who has been detained at Stewart since March 2020, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that many detainees who had tested positive for COVID-19 were not adequately distanced from those who hadn’t and that new detainees were not being tested for the virus upon their arrival.

“The whole place is contaminated,” Clement told the outlet. “I’m scared for my life.”

Nationally, active COVID-19 cases within immigration detention centers increased more than tenfold between December and January, going from 299 cases to 3,022, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.