🚨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! 
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.”
“This has already been sent up to ICE by [Assitant Field Office Director] Pham and denied due to the housing restrictions we face.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
“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.”
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
🚨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!
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.
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
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."
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Hott responds by saying ICE has "backed away from full testing."
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
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.
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
The "bench" means no full-scale COVID tests of people locked in detention.
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Here's an example of these "housing issues" coming up in real time. ICE transferred multiple people to Mesa Verde who tested positive on intake. The warden wrote ICE saying "I cannot put them in the dorms .. and I do not have space for 6 in [quarantine]." courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
After the warden tells ICE he can't put 6 people in lockdown, ICE agrees to move 4 of the people to another detention center, to "someplace" else.
This is why infections are spreading so widely in ICE detention—people are being moved all over the country.
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
This is why infections are spreading so widely in ICE detention—people are being moved all over the country.
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Anyway, that's it for especially awful content from these emails.
Keep in mind that during this period, hundreds of people held in this ICE detention center were terrified of contracting COVID. One man even took his life out of fear. kget.com/news/local-new…
Keep in mind that during this period, hundreds of people held in this ICE detention center were terrified of contracting COVID. One man even took his life out of fear. kget.com/news/local-new…
Following these disclosures, a judge just ordered ICE to test everyone at Mesa Verde as soon as possible.
