The New Mexico Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) is the primary jail in Bernalillo County for individuals serving short sentences and people not yet convicted and awaiting pre-trial. Despite this, extended stays can occur.
We spoke with a private attorney for several people held at the MDC during COVID-19 about the situation at the center. We learned that MDC staff left incarcerated people in their cells for 23 hours a day or longer at the start of the pandemic. Correctional officers and staff donned full hazmat suits to deliver food to cell areas and otherwise avoided contact. The absence of staff indicates a total disregard for prisoners’ mental health and safety; there are accounts of fights breaking out and individuals left with no resources in the case of emergencies or health issues. Solemnly, the attorney indicated extreme discrepancies between what MDC conveyed to the public and what incarcerated people faced.
Testing protocol in NM prisons is ineffective. Incarcerated residents are only transferred to a quarantine pod if they test positive. Tests are available only if they display symptoms. By the time symptomatic inmates are tested and wait 1-5 days to receive results, they may have infected dozens of people. First-hand accounts of underreporting due to inadequate testing protocols corroborate this.
The private attorney also said it was likely 100% of MDC residents had been infected at one point, “There was no way to contain it.”
At a Glance: ICE Facilities in New Mexico
Last year in Torrance County Detention Facility, detained migrants were not allowed social distance, were not provided masks, and were forced to sleep in cells together (Swetlitz, 2020). Worried about their health, they went on hunger strike against the detention center’s dangerous COVID conditions. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents charged a holding cell, attacked, and gassed a group of these striking detainees.
Like prisons, immigrant detention centers are group encampments with crowded conditions. Inadequate or nonexistent hygiene products — like soap and protective equipment — foster the spread of the virus and result in death. (Smart & Garcia, 2020). Overcrowding and lacking physical infrastructure in ICE facilities result in the transfer of immigrant detainees to jails with documented COVID-19 infections. Currently, there are 41,000 immigrants in detention centers and jails in the US. At the time of writing, the number of cases reported by ICE is 13,554, meaning over 30% of immigrant detainees have COVID-19. The actual infection rate is likely higher, as ICE has not been forthcoming and transparent in its reporting.
The U.S. denies due-process rights to immigrants seeking work and refuge; ICE detention camps are hazardous, violent, and inhumane. We call for a shutdown of the camps and a safe reunion of families! The release of detainees is the only appropriate action.