Recently, there has been an outpouring of praise for essential workers on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When COVID-19 hit the U.S., Silvio Urbina Rojas began to wonder if he’d die in an immigrant prison.
He slept in a bed that was only about three feet from another man’s. About 240 men were forced to breathe the same air in a confined space where the coronavirus could be inhaled, and they shared only six toilets, 12 sinks and 12 showers.
On April 20, 2020, a federal district court granted a nationwide preliminary injunction requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take a number of important steps to protect medically vulnerable people in its custody from COVID-19.
As the COVID-19 virus threatened the health and lives of people held at immigration detention centers in 2020, the SPLC and its allies filed a federal class action lawsuit seeking the immediate release of all people held at three detention centers in South Florida.
The complaint describes...
