The Miami Herald reported that while ICE has claimed “for weeks” that no one in their custody in Florida has tested positive for COVID-19, a now-hospitalized detainee at a facility in Miami-Dade has tested positive. ICE “got around having to disclose that any detainee was sick with COVID-19 because the detainee was technically no longer on the premises, federal sources say.” It’s this shady behavior that’s leading advocates to fear ICE will try to disguise numbers and hide detainee deaths—because the agency has already engaged in this shady behavior before, an immigration policy expert tweets.

x To be fair, ICE is not unique among jailers in trying to hide in-custody deaths by "releasing" people as they lay dying in a hospital. It's a practice that local police have also been documented carrying out.



Expect it to be used during COVID-19. https://t.co/Qxa3CN6m2G — Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) April 7, 2020

x ICE has done this multiple times.



Jose Luis Ibarra suffered a brain hemorrhage in detention in February 2019.



ICE transferred him to a hospital, then "released" him as he lay in a coma. When he died, ICE didn't have to report his death as "in custody."https://t.co/uVcxsxKz8Y — Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) April 7, 2020

In another example, Reichlin-Melnick writes that “Saliou Ndiaye sought asylum from Senegal. He was held in detention for a year. After his case was denied, he tried to kill himself. Kept on life support in a hospital, ICE ‘released’ him—getting themselves off the hook.” And while she didn’t die in custody, Yazmin Juárez said officials failed to provide proper medical treatment when her daughter Mariee became sick while at a migrant family jail in 2018. Yazmin said ICE released them only after the child had deteriorated and had become limp. Mariee died at a hospital six weeks later. She was just two years old.

ICE cannot be trusted with lives—and the No. 1 way to immediately lessen the harm facing detained people is to free them. “People in congregate environments—places where people live, eat, and sleep in close proximity—face increased risk of contracting COVID-19, as already evidenced by the rapid spread of the virus in cruise ships, nursing homes, and jails,” states a new lawsuit demanding the release of vulnerable detainees in California. These conditions, plaintiffs said, “are tinderboxes for rapid widespread infection within and beyond the facilities.”

UPDATE #1:

Senior policy analyst Jesse Franzblau tweeted ICE has updated its public tally to 19, though that number doesn’t match up with BuzzFeed News’ earlier count of 20. “We know they are hiding other confirmed cases, and there are countless more people who they haven't tested,” he said. “ICE says they've identified 600 identified as ‘vulnerable’ but only around 160 have been released custody since March 30 2020.”

x They just bumped it to 19. We know they are hiding other confirmed cases, and there are countless more people who they haven't tested. ICE says they've identified 600 identified as Ã¢ÂÂvulnerable" but only around 160 have been released custody since March 30 2020. pic.twitter.com/F2UeZFr4Ex — Jesse Franzblau (@JFranzblau) April 7, 2020

UPDATE #2:

BuzzFeed News’ Hamed Aleaziz is standing by his count of 20 ICE detainees with confirmed coronavirus—and of course it ties back to the case from Florida that ICE is trying to disguise: