Migrants forced to clean Arizona ICE center with high coronavirus rates, lawsuit says

Immigrants detained at an Arizona Immigration and Customs Enforcement center said they were forced to clean the facility without coronavirus protections, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Monday.

Several migrants at the La Palma Correctional Center said they lacked enough personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic and “rather than professional cleaners, are responsible for cleaning the facilities and often are not given appropriate supplies,” according to the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, the migrants were “not given gloves unless they are on duty in a specific job (such as food server or kitchen worker), nor are they given hand sanitizer.”

An ICE official told McClatchy News that ICE doesn’t comment on pending litigation but said detainees volunteer for work assignments and aren’t required to work, except in cases of personal housekeeping.

At least 76 immigrants tested positive for COVID-19 in late May, azcentral.com reported. The ICE facility had the six-largest outbreak at a detention center in the country, according to AZ Central.

In a letter obtained by NBC News, two migrants said they were “asked to clean the trash from the nurses’ office, where sick patients were treated.” Another said he had to clean the “feces-covered cell of a mentally ill detainee without gloves.”

The migrants also said they were given two “disposable masks of very poor quality in the month of April” and got “two cloth masks” in May, according to NBC. They said they weren’t given hygiene products like toilet paper on weekends.

Over 1,100 people have died from COVID-19 in Arizona as of Wednesday, June 10, according to Johns Hopkins University. There were also over 1.9 million confirmed cases in the U.S.

This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 4:46 PM with the headline "Migrants forced to clean Arizona ICE center with high coronavirus rates, lawsuit says."