(Bloomberg) -- U.S. immigration authorities should immediately release detainees in a Seattle-area facility who are at risk of serious illness or death if they’re infected with the coronavirus, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a federal lawsuit.
Detainees who are elderly or have underlying health conditions should be freed from a facility in Tacoma, Washington, the ACLU said in its suit, filed Monday in Seattle against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Federal and state public health authorities have called for all Americans to keep their distance from one another to limit the pathogen’s spread.
Immigrant detention centers “uniquely heighten the danger of disease transmission,” the ACLU said in a statement. That puts other detainees as well as guards and the general public at greater risk, the group said, adding that even in normal circumstances “ICE has proven time and again that it is unable to protect the health and safety of detained people.”
The suit was filed on behalf of detainees from countries including Mexico, Cuba and Zimbabwe. One plaintiff, Kelvin Melgar Alas, a citizen of El Salvador, has been detained by ICE since July 2018 and has previously suffered from pneumonia requiring hospital treatments, according to the complaint.
The ACLU singled out the Tacoma facility because it’s near the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, where the Life Care Center was the first hot spot for the virus in the U.S.
ICE’s press office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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