Read on Twitter
Last winter, I wrote about an asylum-seeker named Kevin and how ICE used confidential therapy notes to keep him detained.
In July, his detention center was overrun by Covid, and he gave up his case. He didn't survive even a month back in Central America.
https://washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/26/immigration-detention-covid-deportation/?arc404=true
In July, his detention center was overrun by Covid, and he gave up his case. He didn't survive even a month back in Central America.
https://washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/26/immigration-detention-covid-deportation/?arc404=true
More than 2,500 immigration detainees have given up their cases since the pandemic began, despite the risks back home. One told me it felt like choosing to jump from a burning building. Most had no criminal records.
8,500 others have stayed in detention and caught the virus.
8,500 others have stayed in detention and caught the virus.
At Kevin's detention center in Virginia, 90 percent of detainees got sick. The outbreak there was triggered when ICE transferred sick detainees to Virginia so the planes could be used to transport agents to protests in DC. https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/ice-air-farmville-protests-covid/2020/09/11/f70ebe1e-e861-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html
Kevin was scared to return to Honduras. He had fled the gang MS-13 after been forcibly recruited as a 12-year-old, and the punishment for running away is death.
While he was making up his mind, a dorm mate gave up his case and was murdered by MS-13 almost immediately.
While he was making up his mind, a dorm mate gave up his case and was murdered by MS-13 almost immediately.
In the end, Kevin decided that even though a judge had already granted him asylum, he couldn't keep waiting in detention during a pandemic for ICE's appeals to be resolved. His family says the few weeks he lived after being deported were some of his happiest.
The outbreaks in ICE detention never stopped. Hundreds of detainees are sick right now. Politicians appear unlikely to prioritize them for the vaccine. And so, even with a new administration coming in, immigrants continue to ask for their own deportation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/26/immigration-detention-covid-deportation/?arc404=true
One hugely valuable resource for this story was Syracuse's @TRACReports. This is an indispensable tool for reporters and anyone else trying to understand trends in the wildly opaque immigration court system. I can't thank TRAC's @ackocher and Sue Long enough for their help.
