Will California include immigration centers in its COVID-19 vaccine rollout plans?
More than two dozen organizations are urging California Gov. Gavin Newsom to include the state’s immigration detention centers to be part of COVID-19 vaccine roll-out plans and discussions.
The organizations sent a letter to Newsom on Friday. The Immigrant Defense Advocates and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice led the effort.
The governor’s office and a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t immediately return a request for comment late Friday.
“The humanitarian crisis posed by the spread of COVID-19 in immigration detention facilities in California has had disastrous consequences for those detained in these facilities, as well as neighboring communities,” the letter reads.
The letter comes on the heels of the state’s initial distribution of the vaccine to top priority groups, such as health care workers. Immigration detention facilities, including the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility in Bakersfield, have seen outbreaks of the deadly virus. Private contractors, such as the GEO Group and ICE officials, have been criticized by a federal judge for their handling of outbreaks in their facilities.
There are more than half a dozen immigration detention centers in the state.
The group of organizations, in its letter, cite a new policy recently adopted by the American Medical Association in support of having vulnerable individuals in immigration detention centers and correctional facilities get the vaccine.
“The policy notes, ‘Recognizing that detention center and correctional workers, incarcerated people, and detained immigrants are at high risk for COVID-19, the new policy also makes clear that these individuals should be prioritized in receiving access to safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines in the initial phases of distribution,’” the letter reads.
The organizations say mistrust is another challenge in immigration detention centers. Detained immigrants fear private contractors running the facilities for ICE, and may not feel comfortable accepting a vaccine from them, according to the letter.
“The vaccine should be available, especially because there are elderly people here and people who are vulnerable. But people want to get it from someone outside, not ICE,” an immigrant detained at the Golden State Detention facility in McFarland told the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.
“We need someone to come in and educate on what the vaccine is, someone that people trust.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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