Extraordinarily troubling emails from GEO’s ICE detention center in Mesa Verde reveal that local ICE outright rejected the option of widespread COVID testing because they knew it would cause “housing issues” if they were forced to quarantine everyone who tested positive! https://twitter.com/johnhawkinson/status/1291175100600004610

ICE officials told GEO not to test people at the Mesa Verde detention center because it would cause “housing issues.”

“This has already been sent up to ICE by [Assitant Field Office Director] Pham and denied due to the housing restrictions we face.”

https://twitter.com/johnhawkinson/status/1291180453446275073?s=21 https://twitter.com/johnhawkinson/status/1291180453446275073

On July 13, GEO’s CEO testified to Congress that COVID was perfectly under control in ICE detention centers.

Not even three weeks earlier a GEO VP admonished Mesa Verde’s warden: “We cannot just throw up our hands and say there isn’t anything we can do.”

https://twitter.com/johnhawkinson/status/1291181829085638663?s=21 https://twitter.com/johnhawkinson/status/1291181829085638663

ICE told GEO not to test staff!

“The AFOD mentioned during he would rather not have staff testing as that may also impact ERO functions, i.e. an asymptomatic person testing positive would require possible dorm [lockdowns] and detainee testing protocols.”

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.358452/gov.uscourts.cand.358452.489.8.pdf

Oh my god. This is ICE’s national testing plan for detention centers, from May 27, doesn’t even have a requirement to start widespread mass testing of people in detention center where there are already COVID outbreaks until late August!

https://twitter.com/johnhawkinson/status/1291194403403554816?s=21 https://twitter.com/johnhawkinson/status/1291194403403554816

Digging back into these emails, here's one from AFOD Pham to Field Office Director Jennings, making clear that if too many people tested positive, ICE would have to release people—something the agency has been very unwilling to do.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.358452/gov.uscourts.cand.358452.488.13.pdf

Jennings, San Francisco's Field Office Director, emails Russell Hott, ICE's Acting Assistant Director for the Custody Management Division, concerned about being a COVID "test place."

Hott responds by saying ICE has "backed away from full testing."

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.358452/gov.uscourts.cand.358452.488.12.pdf

Jennings then forwards that email to Erik Bonnar, SF ICE Field Office director of enforcement and removal operations, saying "Looks like we have been moved to the bench for now."

The "bench" means no full-scale COVID tests of people locked in detention.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.358452/gov.uscourts.cand.358452.488.12.pdf