​COVID-19 has broken out in the Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, NY, where the County incarcerates people for the NY State Department of Corrections and detains immigrants through a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to ICE’s own data, there is at least 1 confirmed case of COVID-19 amongst people in ICE detention at the jail. According to one of the people held in ICE detention at Orange County jail, five guards have also tested positive for COVID-19.

The COVID-19 outbreak follows ICE transfers in early January of people from the Hudson County Jail in Kearny, New Jersey. Those transfers came as political retaliation against hunger strikers in ICE detention who were demanding their release. Until now, there had been no reported cases of COVID-19 at the Orange County Jail, while there have been multiple outbreaks at the Hudson County Jail. As recently as December 27, 2020, there were at least 33 cases of COVID-19 at the facility.

It is widely documented that ICE transfers increase the spread of COVID-19, endangering everyone — from people who are detained, to facility workers, to the broader community. In December 2020, Detention Watch Network released a report concluding that ICE’s policy of transfers between locations, combined with its grievous disregard for the health of people jailed in its detention centers as well as the people who staff them were responsible for a stunning 5.5 percent of COVID cases nationwide as of August 1, 2020.

“When I was in there and COVID was going on, there was no social distancing. There were new people being detained with no quarantine. Some guards wore masks, some didn’t. Guards were regularly contracting COVID outside of the facility, and missing work, but no one inside was getting tested. There were at least 3 people who got sick, and went to medical, and never came back. No one was tested after they left. The jail inconsistently checked our temperatures, but didn’t even do that right. Even the medical professionals didn’t wear masks properly or at all. They tried to keep everything hush, hush. The only time there was deep cleaning was when important people would come visit or inspect the jail. Only some guards wore masks, and even then, they didn’t wear them properly. It isn’t safe there. The officers go in and out. You don’t know what they’re bringing in,” says Jeremy (pseudonym) who was released from Orange County jail in summer 2020.

“In my opinion, the jail is bad about how they go about handling COVID. The guards here go from unit to unit, which is bad when there is a positive case in one unit. It just makes things worse and makes it possible for the disease to spread in the jail. The other day, an officer told me to wear a mask because 5 guards tested positive for COVID. The jail never tests us for COVID. I have never received a COVID test. Even when people are being transferred to Louisiana for deportation, they’re not tested for COVID before they leave. The way the jail handles COVID is bad. Some of the guards don’t wear the masks properly, like not covering the nose; or when you talk to them, they take off the mask. When COVID first started, they’d come around and take temperatures; but they don’t do that anymore. It seems like they are not taking this seriously,” says Jason (pseudonym) who is presently incarcerated in ICE detention at Orange County Jail.

As of January 13, 2020, ICE has reported 8,800 positive cases among detained people out of a total of 82,585 individuals who had been tested. 2020 was the deadliest year in ICE detention since 2005, with 21 people dying, eight from COVID-19 —a figure that doesn’t include those who contracted COVID-19 in detention and then were released or deported.

It is unclear whether the COVID-19 outbreak was caused by the ICE transfers or external transmission from guards or other staff, but both greatly increase the risk of transmission, sickness and death, heightened by lack of proper social distancing or medical care in prisons, jails and ICE detention centers. The COVID-19 outbreak at Orange County Jail creates a major public health threat to those detained by ICE and DOC, jail staff, and the surrounding community. Advocates and health policy experts have repeatedly made clear that the only way to limit the spread of coronavirus is to release people from detention.

We call on ICE to:
- Release people from detention at Orange County Jail to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the facility, starting with the person who has tested positive for COVID-19, so that they can recover outside of detention
- Stop transfers between facilities, a practice that violates CDC recommendations and actively spreads COVID-19
- Stop retaliating against hunger strikers, whether through transfers, denial of basic necessities, use of solitary confinement, or other means
- Release all people from detention and end enforcement operations

We call on the Orange County Corrections Dept & County Executive to:
- End the county’s contract with ICE and ensure that people released from the jail are reunited with their families, not transferred to other detention facilities.
- End the dangerous practices around testing, PPE, and other basic health measures in the Orange County Correctional Facility

We call on the New York State Legislature to:
- End collaboration with ICE in the transferring of people to and from local, county and state detention facilities by passing the New York For All Act (S7562/A9586)
- End local contracts between NY County jails and ICE to detain immigrants
- Investigate & increase oversight of Orange County Correctional Facility and all NY jails and prisons in response to the systemic institutional inability to guarantee the health and safety of incarcerated and detained people, particularly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, we call on New York Governor Cuomo to:
- Sign an executive order prohibiting cities, counties, municipalities, and law enforcement agencies from entering into, renewing, or modifying a contract to initiate or extend the length of any contract with the federal government or any private corporation
- Direct all local and state law enforcement agencies to suspend all transfers to immigration authorities.
- Grant immediate clemency and parole to immigrants incarcerated in state custody without transferring them to ICE, and grant clemency to people in prisons, particularly incarcerated elders and others at risk of getting sick from COVID-19.