Guards at the Pearsall immigrant detention center pepper-sprayed about 60 immigrants who rioted Monday and demanded their release because they fear catching the coronavirus.

“These are people sitting, trapped, at the government’s expense without access to proper medical care, so they’re freaking out,” said Andrés Perez, an immigration lawyer for the San Antonio-based Perez & Malik firm. “Pepper spray is uncalled for.”

On Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced its first case of a detained migrant testing positive for the coronavirus, at a facility in New Jersey.

On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases

ICE confirmed the riot at its South Texas Processing Center, about 55 miles southwest of San Antonio. In a statement, the agency said the detainees refused to return to their beds as ordered, so the guards initiated a “use of force” protocol by spraying them with pepper spray.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Dogget, D-Austin, sent a letter to ICE calling its use of pepper spray an “outsized retaliatory use of force against detained individuals who express dissent peacefully.” Doggett also asked how many immigrants are in quarantine for exhibiting coronavirus-like symptoms. In a letter back, ICE didn’t answer the question but reiterated there are currently no cases of COVID-19 at the Pearsall facility.

ICE has a history of struggling to contain viral outbreaks, including measles, mumps, chickenpox and other contagious diseases, at detention facilities. The agency has also come under fire for insufficient medical care for its detainees. In this fiscal year, 10 migrants have died in ICE custody.

“If you’re in a situation where any medical care is hard to come by unless it’s severe — if you can’t really get normal medical care, and you knew you were being exposed to the virus, you’d be pretty freaked out,” Perez said.

He represents a detained Mexican immigrant named Jose Luis who has a U.S. citizen wife and two citizen children. Jose Luis has been calling Perez from the Pearsall detention facility to tell him about the rioting in the dorms next door to him — he said the chemical smell of the pepper spray was seeping into his living quarters.

Inmates started panicking in recent days after learning of the virus from TV news inside the facility and grew concerned not only over the screening of arriving migrants and contract workers, but also of a few migrants who were exhibiting coronavirus-like symptoms.

On ExpressNews.com: ‘Coronavirus cases in detention facilities called ‘inevitable’’

“Sunday night I heard from an inmate saying there’s been rioting inside,” said Crystal Vargas, an immigration attorney in San Antonio. “The detainees were upset because they’ve seen new people coming in without being screened for the virus. … They feel that they’re not being cared for.”

Vargas and Perez said their clients told them that ICE has now removed news access at their facility.

It’s unclear if ICE has easy access to testing, though attorneys and advocates say it’s unlikely.

“Imagine how scary that is for them,” Vargas said.

ICE moved nine detained migrants who instigated the protests to restricted housing and said they would be punished with “disciplinary charges due to security violations.”

“ICE remains committed to provide detainees a safe and orderly living environment, consistent with federal law and agency policy,” the agency said in its statement. “Conduct that disrupts or interferes with the security or orderly running of the facility is sufficient to merit a transfer, restricted house and/or disciplinary charges.”

Silvia Foster-Frau covers immigration news in the San Antonio, Bexar County and South Texas area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | sfosterfrau@express-news.net | Twitter: @SilviaElenaFF