POMPANO BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - Protesters gathered outside the Broward County Transitional Center in Pompano Beach on Friday morning to demand ICE release immigrant detainees fearing they may be at risk to contract the coronavirus.
Doctors, nurses and family members of the detainees said that the longer they stay inside the immigration center, the more their lives are at risk of contracting COVID-19.
“Our demands as physicians, dismiss all new arrests of immigrants and release high-risk detainees immediately,” Dr. Franklin Rocha Cabrera said.
The protesters said the detainees do not have masks, cannot wash their hands when they want to, do not have hand sanitizer and cannot social distance.
Healthcare professionals said that more than 60% of the detainees have tested positive for COVID-19. The federal judge agreed, saying that keeping the detainees at the center knowing most of them are infected is cruel and unusual punishment.
“We know that physical distancing in detention centers like the Broward Transitional Center behind me is impossible,” internal medicine practitioner Dr. Lilly Ostrer said. “Already we have seen prisons and detention centers across the U.S. become major hotbeds of infection.”
Marcia Cooke, a federal judge, ordered U.S. Immigration authorities Thursday night to release the hundreds of detainees being held at the facility and two others.
The judge wrote a lengthy 12-page order telling ICE they are acting with deliberate indifference and they need to act fast.
“ICE has failed to provide detainees in some detention centers with masks, soap and other cleaning supplies, and failed to ensure that all detainees housed at the three detention centers can practice social distancing,” Cooke said. “Such failures amount to cruel and unusual punishment because they are exemplary of deliberate indifference.”
“As a doctor,” Ostrer said, “I could not agree more that subjecting individuals to the novel coronavirus enter into a high risk of serious illness or death, regardless of their immigration status, is cruel and inhumane.”
Richard Munoz’s brother is inside of the Pompano Beach facility, and he said the protesters are feeling scared. He said he has been at the facility for over a year and suffers from pre-existing conditions, and with such close quarters inside, Munoz said he is sure to catch the virus.
“ICE is putting our entire community at risk of contracting the virus, overwhelming our hospitals and ourselves and our loved ones dying,” Ostrer said. “As doctors, we put ourselves at risk by showing up to work every day. We’re looking to ICE and our government to do their part in keeping our communities safe. We call on ICE and the U.S. government to release all individuals from ICE detention immediately.”
Cooke told ICE they have three days to draw up a plan. Once they do so, they will report back to her with the plan to release the detainees.
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