Coronavirus cases skyrocket at ICE detention center in Broward after transfer from Miami
Coronavirus cases at an immigration detention center in Broward skyrocketed over the weekend after dozens of detainees were transferred there from the Krome center in Miami-Dade County.
According to the latest available federal figures from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach went from having three cases on Friday to 19 cases on Monday night. The agency does not update its data over the weekend.
Broward’s case tally now exceeds the count for positive cases at the Krome detention center in Miami-Dade, which has slowly climbed to 13 over the last two months.
The spike in cases came after 33 detainees were transferred from Krome to BTC late last week, federal sources, detainees and their families told the Miami Herald. After the detainees arrived at the facility on Thursday, they were separated into groups of six and then tested for the coronavirus. Results were given on Friday.
“That’s when at least 16 people tested positive, right after they arrived from Krome,” one GEO Group senior employee, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Herald Sunday. GEO operates BTC under contract with ICE. None of its employees or contractors had tested positive as of Friday, a GEO spokesperson said.
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the 16 people who tested positive had just been transferred by ICE from Krome to BTC.
The transfer of detainees to and from facilities has led to panic among immigration advocates and the families of detainees as cases of the coronavirus continue to rise behind bars.
At a hearing on Thursday, a federal magistrate judge in Miami asked ICE to “voluntarily produce” its transfer data for the last month to the court. The hearing was part of an April 13 lawsuit filed by immigration lawyers seeking the release of detainees at three South Florida facilities: Krome, BTC and the Glades County detention center in Moore Haven.
Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman’s request was made days after ICE filed documents saying it had complied with a federal judge’s order to cut populations at Krome, BTC and Glades. Citing “cruel and unusual punishment” behind bars, Miami U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke had issued a 14-day temporary restraining order last month saying ICE must shrink its detainee populations at the centers to 75 percent of the capacity to allow for social distancing. That order was extended for another two weeks, until May 28.
Cooke said ICE was permitted to transfer the detainees. Immigration attorneys who filed the lawsuit called transferring detainees in and out of detention facilities a “health risk” and “a shell game.”
The comments caught Goodman’s attention. He told Dexter Lee, a senior attorney for the Department of Justice representing ICE, that he “might as well have a candid conversation and persuade [ICE] to voluntarily produce” the transfer data.
Goodman gave Lee until May 18 to decide whether the agency will agree to produce the records. ICE had not responded as of May 19.
Though moving detainees is common practice for ICE, the agency told the court that transfers were accelerated when the litigation was filed to bring populations down. As a result, ICE moved detainees to centers in North Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona, among others.
A policy directive issued by ICE in 2012 details officially sanctioned reasons for transfers, including “medical or mental health care to the detainee” and the “safety and security of the detainee, other detainees, detention personnel or any ICE employee.”
As of 6 a.m. on May 18, Krome’s population was reduced to 69 percent capacity, Glades’ population was at 73 percent capacity and BTC’s at 65 percent, court records show.
The capacity at Krome is 572, at BTC it is 700 and at Glades it is 463. About half of detainees who have been tested for COVID-19 have tested positive. According to ICE’s webpage, 1,073 out of 2,172 detainees tested positive in the last two months nationwide. About 28,000 people were in ICE custody as of Tuesday.
This story was originally published May 19, 2020 at 5:59 PM.
