During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the SPLC and its allies filed a lawsuit seeking the immediate release of people with preexisting health conditions held at three south Georgia immigration detention centers, where they are at greater risk of contracting the virus that causes the disease....
COVID-19 began to infect the nation at rapid speed in March, reaching every corner of the country and taking the lives of more than 6,000 people by April 3. The United Nations has dubbed the coronavirus the “most challenging” crisis the globe has witnessed since World War II.
We are only beginning to feel the impacts of the coronavirus, but we know that the communities we serve — including low-income people, immigrants and people of color — are already among the most affected.
As people across the country are confined to their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, little attention has been given to a group of people whose health is in danger because they are locked away from the outside world – people in immigrant detention centers.
More than 1,100 people age 65 or older are locked away in Alabama prisons, putting a group already highly susceptible to the deadly COVID-19 virus at an even greater risk, according to an SPLC analysis of the state’s prison system.
