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.
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.
The SPLC and its allies asked a federal court today to issue a preliminary injunction requiring that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) take immediate steps to protect people in its custody, particularly those who have medical conditions making them more susceptible to serious illness and death from COVID-19.
Drugs were a way of life in the economically struggling “Brickyard” neighborhood of Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Nicky Patterson grew up.
Shackled, cuffed and stuffed into the “black hole” of America’s immigration system in rural Georgia, far away from family and friends, Marco soon began to rely heavily on his faith.
He was forced to share a room with 63 other men at Stewart Detention Center. He slept on a stiff bunk bed, and the guards kept the lights on all night.
It was hard for him to sleep under those conditions, so he prayed.
Guards shackled Sai Mahad to a chair, placed a mask over his mouth and snaked a long tube through one of his nostrils.