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We looked at ICE data going back to 2010 and found that immigrants are being held now for longer on average than at any time in a decade - in the middle of a pandemic. With @kristinacooke 1/9 https://reut.rs/3jL0eZC
We spoke to 20 detainees from Africa and Latin America in ICE centers around the country detained for more than six months. Some were asylum seekers held for long periods as they fight their cases. Around 2,600 people in detention have passed a first asylum screening. 2/9
Some were DACA recipients who got in trouble and have been detained for long periods after finishing their jail sentences, fighting to stay in the United States. 3/9
Detainees are being held for much longer, even as the overall detention population dropped dramatically this year. Part of the reason for that decline: around 150,000 expulsions at the US-Mexico border under new health rules put in place by the Trump administration in March. 4/9
ICE said it is doing everything to protect the health and safety of detainees. Many of the detainees we spoke to had been transferred between centers and said social distancing was difficult. Some had been infected with COVID. There have been more than 6,400 positive cases. 5/9
We documented earlier that ICE transfers in some cases have exacerbated the spread of coronavirus. In Farmville, @NickMiroff and the WP found these transfers were to move federal agents to tamp down protestors in D.C. 6/9 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-immigration-detent/u-s-immigration-officials-spread-coronavirus-with-detainee-transfers-idUSKCN24I1G0
So far there have been 8 deaths in custody. The first a Canadian man in his 70s who had finished a long prison sentence and was hoping to go home to reunite with his family. 7/9 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-immigration-canadi/special-report-almost-home-covid-19-ensnares-elderly-ice-detainee-from-canada-idUSKCN25A1FL
Some of the immigrant detainees inside facing COVID risks have family members outside facing COVID risks because of their frontline jobs. Like this couple who both worked in a meatpacking plant and both got infected 8/9 https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-meatpacking-family/
Many immigrant detainees, even if they have been ordered deported, cannot leave the country because of coronavirus travel restrictions. So if ICE doesn't parole them they are stuck. Some are restless and have protested. 9/9 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-detention-insight-idUSKBN26U15Y
Also, here is an interactive graphic showing how the average length of stay in ICE detention has risen sharply, especially for those who only have civil immigration violations, not criminal convictions. https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-IMMIGRATION/DETENTION/yzdvxqbzzpx/
