Dr. Scott Allen and Dr. Josiah “Jody” Rich

In February and March 2020, at the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we helped our client Dr. Scott Allen – who had formerly raised concerns with his colleague Dr. Pamela McPherson about the risk of harm to children in ICE detention – and new client Dr.  Josiah “Jody” Rich, both national experts in detention health and subject matter experts for DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), warn DHS and Congress about the risk to immigrants, workers and the public from the spread of COVID-19 in ICE detention. Drs. Allen and Rich warned that because of the congregate settings and frequent transfers of immigrants and staff in and out of the facilities, ICE detention would create a dangerous “tinderbox” for the spread of the coronavirus.  

Drs. Allen’s and Rich’s letter to Congress was cited in support of emergency release petitions for detainees in immigrant detention vulnerable to COVID. Hundreds of detainees were ordered released based on these litigation efforts, including numerous at-risk immigrants across the country covered by the Fraihat v. ICE class action litigation.  

Dr. Rich worked with his public health expert colleagues to coordinate a research project by epidemiologists, data scientists, criminologists that modeled both the rate of spread of COVID-19 in every ICE detention facility and the predicted impact on local public health facilities within 10 and 50-mile radiuses of each facility. The study was published in May 2020 in the Journal of Urban Health, was widely covered in the media and was used to support litigation and advocacy efforts seeking release of immigrants from detention.  Dr. Allen included reference to this study, as well as repeating his and Dr. Rich’s call for widespread release of immigrants in civil detention to slow the spread of COVID-19, in his testimony as a witness at a Senate Judiciary Hearing, “Examining Best Practices for Incarceration and Detention During COVID-19,” on June 2, 2020.

With the inauguration of the Biden Administration, Drs. Allen and Rich, along with Dr. Pamela McPherson, renewed their warnings to DHS CRCL and then to the White House Coronavirus Response Team and the White House COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force about the spread of COVID in ICE detention as the virus continued to rage with little change to immigration detention settings. Finally, in May 2021, they escalated the warnings to Congress about the unaddressed massive public health threat and the failure to issue a federal mandate for the distribution of widely available vaccines to immigrants in ICE detention, in contrast to the approach taken by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Their letter, covered by the New York Times and other outlets, helped support calls for vaccination and release of immigrants by allies at the ACLU and others—part of an intentional strategy made possible by our close alliances with those leading litigation and advocacy efforts on behalf of detained immigrants. 

As a result of this advocacy, vaccinations increased in ICE detention, and Drs. Allen and Rich continue to press for improved distribution as well as education to build trust around vaccine acceptance. Dr. Allen particularly has been a outspoken, credible voice as a DHS medical expert and national expert in detention health, supporting congressional investigations and forums that have well-documented the failures by ICE and its contractors to meet the medical needs of immigrants in ICE detention.