More than 1,200 immigrants in the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) and held in detention centers in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the accounting of this federal agency revealed this Monday.
According to ICE, there are currently 1,254 detainees infected with COVID-19 in their custody, an increase of around 1,000 cases compared to the last week of 2021, when there were about 200 infected immigrants in detention.
The organization Al Otro Lado warned today in a message on its social networks that coronavirus cases have increased by 216% since last week.
He added that families of detainees in Texas have reported that immigrants “remain with the same mask for days.”
The increase in cases is matched by the increase in cases throughout the United States due to the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
The Karnes County Residential Center, in Texas, currently registers the highest number of people isolated by covid-19 with 135, according to data as of this Sunday, January 9.
Marú Mora Villalpando, director and founder of the community organization La Resistencia, said ICE continues to endanger immigrants.
He said that a detainee in Tacoma, Washington, told them that the cleaning at the detention center in that town is sporadic.
Since the arrival of the disease in the country, a total of 32,345 cases of covid-19 have been registered in ICE facilities, a figure that includes 11 deaths related to the disease.
Almost 500,000 covid-19 tests have been carried out by ICE on the detainees. The agency has not disclosed how many of the guards at these prisons have tested positive.