“Today, I am officially declaring a national emergency.” Although President Trump declared the coronavirus a national emergency on March 13, ICE continued to take immigrants from the community and detain them in facilities where conditions were ripe for the virus to spread. To understand how ICE spread the virus, let’s first look at how its detention system works. ICE said its detention and transfer protocols follow C.D.C. The Trump administration has threatened governments with visa sanctions and cuts in humanitarian aid unless they complied with deportations.

... March 13, 2020 Quality journalism doesn't come free. He had been living in the U.S. for 20 years with his wife and two kids when he was detained in 2019. Updated: Sun 10:49 PM, Jan 12, 2020 BLOOMER, Wis. (WEAU) - Casa Mexicana is open in Bloomer today, for the first time in three days.
The hashtag #GetMePPE trends on social media, asking politicians and concerned individuals to donate N95 masks to hospitals and clinics in order to avoid health system collapse without enough healthy frontline workers to care for patients. So far, ICE has confirmed at least 3,000 positive detainees, though testing has been limited. When detainees lose their immigration cases and are ordered deported, ICE will move them to other detention centers in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona or Florida.

Even as detention centers became hotbeds for the virus, ICE regularly moved detainees around the U.S. We tracked over 750 domestic U.S. flights that carried thousands of detainees to different centers since a national emergency was declared. ICE confirmed to us that they are only able to administer a sampling of tests before sending immigrants home. He said he was one of 32 from his flight who tested positive. And with them, the virus. The Salvadoran government didn’t reply to our request for comment.

2020 Announcements.

Yet deportation flights continue.Admild, an undocumented immigrant from Haiti, was feeling sick as he approached the deportation plane that was going to take him back to the country he had fled in fear. Guatemala asked the U.S. to test migrants, and it temporarily blocked flights. Hundreds of deportees are being held in quarantine centers like this one in El Salvador. Kanate told us that four of his dormmates either tested positive for Covid or had symptoms, but were deported to India anyway. He was put in quarantine and deported two weeks later. At this historic moment, we must set our priorities straight. February 12, 2020 – ICE Arrests 75 People in Michigan and Ohio. He asked to remain anonymous. Swift Air declined to comment on this story. And we’ve talked to Covid-positive deportees in Guatemala, El Salvador, India and Haiti. We also tracked over 200 deportation flights carrying migrants, some of them ill with coronavirus, to other countries from March through June.

They’re held in what’s called civil detention while they wait for hearings to determine whether they can remain in the U.S.

The Detroit Free Press reported that ICE arrested 75 people in Michigan and Ohio in a weeklong operation that lasted from February 1–7. Sources inside told us at least 10 Covid cases were confirmed in the centers. El Salvador on the other hand has said that no deportees arrived with the virus. She and several other airline employees we spoke to said that these flights, which were under the direction of ICE, lacked protective measures for more than a month after the national emergency was declared. El Salvador and Honduras have accepted thousands of deportees since March, despite rising rates of Covid there and poor infrastructure to address the pandemic. The Day That ICE Came: How Worksite Raids Are Once Again Harming Children and Families By Wendy Cervantes, Rebecca Ullrich, and Vanessa Meraz Police say two ICE … ICE says it has followed C.D.C. While the numbers of individuals apprehended or found inadmissible at the border nationwide increased 68% over the previous fiscal year, the total number of aliens arrested guidelines, but our investigation reveals how unsafe conditions and scattershot testing turned ICE into a domestic and global spreader of the coronavirus, and how pressure from the Trump administration forced countries to take in sick deportees despite the risk. In April, Kanate was moved from the Pike County facility in Pennsylvania to Prairieland, Texas, even though he had been feeling sick. One of them talked to us after he had arrived home. At this historic moment, we must set our priorities straight. Democrats condemned the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids as "inhumane," saying they are dividing US communities and tearing families apart.