‘IT’S REPREHENSIBLE’

ICE Keeps Releasing Detainees With Positive Coronavirus Tests, Says Report

Immigration advocates say it’s right that detainees with the virus should be released to get medical care, but that it’s reckless to release them into the public.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are repeatedly releasing detainees who have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, according to a report from The Washington Post. In one example, an asylum-seeker from Cameroon was driven from immigration detention to a bus station in the California border city of Calexico and, when volunteers greeted him and offered help, he told them he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. The next day, a Cuban man was dropped off who had also just tested positive. Immigration advocates told the Post that it’s right that detainees with the virus should be released to get medical care, but said it’s reckless to release them into the public without providing help. “It’s reprehensible,” Jules Kramer, chief of operations at the Minority Humanitarian Foundation, told the Post. “It’s a threat to public safety. It’s a threat to our asylum-seekers. It’s a threat to the people on the ground helping.” In a statement, ICE spokeswoman Paige Hughes said: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody... In these particular instances, ICE had no legal authority to continue detention for the individuals referenced.”