Port Isabel Detention Center detainee contracts COVID-19

By Gaige Davila
editor@portisabelsouthpadre.com

Editor’s note: This article will be updated with more information. 

One detainee at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC) has tested positive for COVID-19, an ICE spokesperson confirmed to the PRESS.

ICE would not confirm when the detainee tested positive for COVID-19 and is not “releasing information to that level of detail,” according to the spokesperson.

ICE said that detainees who test positive at the PIDC are separated from the general population and are housed in the “medical housing unit.”

In ICE’s COVID-19 Pandemic Response Requirements handbook, detainees with laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19 are required to wear a face mask at all times and and isolated within their own housing space and bathroom. Their masks are supposed to be changed daily.

ICE has temporarily suspended all visits to their detention facilities, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning detainees can only have physical contact with their lawyers.

In total, 943 detainees across ICE’s facilities have contracted COVID-19, according to ICE’s website. At ICE’s South Texas ICE Processing Center, in Pearsall, Texas, southwest of San Antonio, 32 detainees have tested positive for COVID-19. In the Webb County Detention Center, in Laredo, one detainee has tested positive.

Between March 30 and April 9, a contracted employee at the PIDC tested positive for COVID-19, the PRESS previously reported.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.portisabelsouthpadre.com/2020/05/14/port-isabel-detention-center-detainee-contracts-covid-19/

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