ICE offers coronavirus testing to detainees at two facilities

ICE announced Wednesday that it has offered coronavirus testing all detainees at two of its holding facilities, as the agency moves to head off more court-ordered releases and improve its knowledge of COVID-19 within the detained migrant population.

At the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, 459 of the 570 detainees volunteered to be tested. One test came back positive.

Testing was also offered at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility in Colorado. Results will come back within a week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

ICE plans to expand testing to other locations, though the agency says it wanted to see how the two test sites worked.

As of late last week, ICE had conducted 5,096 tests since the start of the pandemic. A number of judges have scolded the agency for not taking more steps to protect detainees, who because of the group housing setting, are at high risk of infection if they are in contact with someone who already has COVID-19.

ICE has cut its detained population in half, but has balked at the mass releases some activist have demanded.

Of the 25,421 people in custody, 838 were COVID-19-positive. Two people who tested positive have died in ICE custody, though the agency says it’s too early to say they died of the disease.

One of those deaths came at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California. A COVID-19 outbreak there has infected 162 detainees.

Henry Lucero, chief of ICE’s detention operations, said expanding testing was “another proactive step ICE is taking to safeguard those in our custody.”

“ICE continues to demonstrate its commitment to the health and welfare of detainees and staff at our facilities by developing, implementing and refining protocols to mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” he said.