Wednesday, April 1, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Immigration authorities are not adequately prepared to protect inmates from a possible spread of the coronavirus at the Henderson Detention Center, which can become a death sentence to those with underlying medical conditions, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday on behalf of two such men.
The Nevada chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union claims that as of Tuesday, 13 inmates had been isolated after they came in contact with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who later tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.
Should the virus spread among the inmates, it could be especially deadly for Daniel Mosso Ramirez, 45, and Christoper Njingu, 51, according to the legal action, which seeks their release from jail.
Both have been diagnosed with hypertension and high cholesterol. Ramirez has pre-diabetes, and Njingu also suffers from chronic pain from torture he suffered during civil war in Cameroon in 2016.
The African man was taken into custody as he sought asylum at a U.S. port of entry in November. He has no known criminal record here or abroad, the suit said.
Ramirez, who’s had legal U.S. status since 1989, was pinged as inadmissible in November for a 2002 drug conviction when immigration authorities took his green card following an international trip, the lawsuit said. Since then, he would check in with those authorities until they took him into custody to process his removal in late February.
Out of 23 people killed by COVID-19 in Clark County, 15 had at least one known preexisting medical condition, the two most common being hypertension and diabetes, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.
ICE contracts a wing of the Henderson jail to house the immigrants it detains. They’re held separately from the general population, said Sherrie Royster, legal director with the ACLU of Nevada. The ICE population can fluctuate between 100 and 200 inmates at a time; they share bathrooms, sinks and showers, essentially making COVID-19 separation guidelines impossible.
The lawsuit notes that the novel virus is highly contagious and easily spread. Infections have spiked in Clark County from zero to 869 as of Tuesday, with fewer than 12,000 tested throughout Nevada.
According to ICE, mitigation measures at its detention centers include screenings, and medical professionals who abide by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. In addition, “ICE also routinely makes custody redeterminations of those in detention, based on individual circumstances, and may release detainees onto alternatives to detention (ATD) and other monitoring programs, for a variety of reasons,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “When making such decisions, ICE officers weigh a variety of factors, including the person’s criminal record, immigration history, ties to the community, risk of flight, and whether he or she poses a potential threat to public safety.”
But according to Royster, the ACLU legal director, there were no COVID-19 procedures when an ICE employee conducted an inmate transport to the Henderson facility earlier this month. “There were no measures or procedures or anything put in place in terms of gloves, or testing or anything else before that handling actually took place,” she added.
The government employee later tested positive for the coronavirus, Royster said, and 13 inmates who he had contact with were placed in isolation last week. According to the lawsuit, ICE disclosed the positive test over the weekend. It wasn’t clear when the transport from Utah occurred.
In the email, the ICE spokesperson said the agency can’t comment on pending litigation. Among those named in the lawsuit are Henderson Police Chief Thedrick Andres and the detention center corrections captain. City police, which run the jail, could not be reached for comment.
Online figures maintained by ICE show that four detainees and five detention center employees have tested positive for COVID-19 in the U.S., neither of them in Nevada.
But there were also 28 confirmed cases among other ICE employees “not assigned to detention facilities,” according to the figures, which don’t expound on what they do or where they are assigned.
The ACLU has been lobbying those who oversee jails and prisons across the U.S. to find ways to release the vulnerable populations and not overcrowd facilities as the virus tears across the country. Royster spoke about ICE agreeing to releases in other states, and hopes that’s the case here, too.
“We do recognize that it is a tough situation to be in, not only for those over the facilities, but also for the governor,” Royster said about the coronavirus in the state. "But we feel that this has been here for almost a month, and those conversations should have been taking place. We can’t wait another day to find or see another fatality to then have someone take action.”
